You didn't answer the second question from your own perspective! Such a thoughtful article though.
You concluded that free will doesn't exist, and asked us to believe in it anyway, since wishing free will into existence was possible - so, the argument should really be that you can predict "short term" decisions, but not longer term ones. This is exactly how things work in physics of the universe and math as well: local extrapolation is possible, but longer term is not. In particular, it is hard to predict what _effect_ such decisions (believing in free will, becoming more educated, decisions that go good/bad) will have on future decisions. In particular, I believe sleeping also changes the brain (neural connections, etc.) in ways that are difficult to predict - hence some randomness. So, you've convinced me short term free will probably does not exist: it's too late. Longer term free will could exist, in the sense that desiring a change could, by adaptation of the brain, cause it to happen. You know, if you truly desire it. Which would be a choice.
Arguably, that is how prayer works as well.
Which brings us back to: does God exist. As a mathematician and someone who believes in the scientific method, I believe the "logically correct answer" is agnosticism, since science can't prove or disprove God exists (proving God exists is obviously impossible: how could mere humans know what makes a being a God? But proving God does not exist is also impossible, because it requires one to have the knowledge of a God. So, if God or Gods do not exist, the only ones who can be certain of such a fact are Gods themselves - hence why many humans essentially view themselves as Gods - maybe Egyptian pharaohs back in the day had a point). Interestingly, the hitch hiker's guide series has a great take on this topic (God does not exist: God says you must have faith, but this one invention obviously is a gift from God, so not believing in God is foolish. Therefore, since faith is no longer required, God can no longer exist.) So does the D & D world (power of a God depends on their followers belief in them: without followers, there isn't faith in the God. Without the faith of people in the world, a God can obviously do nothing in a world in which they cannot actively intervene, for it would prevent the world's inhabitants from truly being "alive". Indeed, most religions correctly note that one can only experience the presence of God through either the actions of others, or experiencing an individual "oneness" with God that _has been experienced similarly by followers before us_. So it's all based on what "feels" like God.) I am a Christian scientist, by the way, and my choice to believe in God/Jesus has a lot to do with the type of life I have lived and the type of life I want to live, which is why this article resonates so well with me.
At the end of the day, these are fantastic philosophical questions, whose consideration will... you guessed it... shape the brain in ways that we cannot fully understand. And thus, will impact one's choices... at least, in the longer term... in ways that are utterly unpredictable. Science cannot explain everything - and accepting that again has mighty ramifications on the choices and beliefs a person might have.
Free will has been a bug a boo item for many thousands of years. In those traditions were reasoning alone is the faculty used for exploring its nature, the question “does free will exist” is nothing more than a 'black hole', where the only truth is emptiness. Many ancient traditions understood correctly what 'free will' is, while science no matter the number of disciplines involved simply cannot escape the limits of its (science) origins. Free will is a 'gift' so to speak, and from where and why are not relevant. It is the capacity to see and choose a path of creative (transcendent) outcome. Be it convenient, or otherwise, your choosing the early model of Maslow's Hierarchy is part of the general issue of not seeing the whole for want of its parts. The model to be used to address the question replaces “Self-Actualization” with “Cognitive Needs”, “Aesthetic Needs”, “Self Actualization”, and “Transcendence”. It should be evident that the lower levels of 'choice', in the hierarchy, are mostly mechanical, in the sense of being an animal. The higher one goes in the hierarchy the greater the 'need' for diminishing the part of “I need” to responsible (holistic) outcomes. The 'imprinting' process of human growth from birth to maturity is full of 'first time' events of learning; and then 'cognitively' using the means and outcome of these 'first time' events over and over with variation. So yes, a lot of the decision making scientist focus on it nothing more than a 'repeat'. The whole manner of looking and testing for this 'free will' misses the point; free will is a complex hierarchical process involving all the aspects of cognition, intuition, beliefs, values with the possibility of a transcendent outcome. And yes choices made at this level, after the first, become repeat decisions. If one's view of knowledge is that it is not limited, not closed, then one needs a decision 'apparatus' that is also open.
This is exactly the kind of question where you have to be super careful as you can easily cherry-pick and make arguments for basically anything, with potentially profound effects on your approach to the world. I am actually not sure this is not a false dichotomy anyway, but I like how you approach it on different levels, i.e. as a fact or as a principle that we internalise.
I am not following Sam Harris much, but I have to say I understand compassion differently. I would say that at its base is the understanding that we are all fighting the very same battles. A different wording can very easily be used exactly to remove agency and make yourself a victim, or make yourself unable to give boundaries to people around, because meh, it's not their fault, let me just hug them. But there exists compassionate anger, even in Buddhism. You can be compassionate with a narcissist, but not giving strong boundaries will destroy you. It feels to me we have to be very careful here not to melt into this kind of all encompassing love bullshit.
Actually the approach to the world regarding being a victim vs. freedom/responsibility is very related, right? This feels more down to earth and it is definitely more adaptive to choose the latter approach, in general, regarding what experience with the world it implies.
Regarding the society, proving there is no free will, what would that be even good for? There must be some responsibility and accountability, otherwise the society would fall apart. Funnily enough, tribal societies hold you responsible usually even for stuff you do by accident, Western society tries to make a difference. So the tribal societies act as if you had nothing but free will, you are totally responsible for whatever you do. Switching to the other extreme would make no sense, which makes me think the question is somehow wrongly put, or that the context matters. To me it feels like you would not ask this question if you were not interested in simply removing your own agency or justifying your current position. But otherwise yeah, it is a fun question to ask, scientifically or philosophically.
The fact that some part of the brain is active before conscious awareness in that wrist-flick belies the question underlying that of free will—what part of your brain's activity is "you"?
Just because our "conscious" (whatever *that* is) awareness/statement of when we make a decision follows other neuroligical activity—necessarily!—doesn't mean that some other neural system isn't operating freely with the information it has available to it. (Not that I'm claiming it is; we don't know, yet, unless there've been studies on that that I haven't heard of.)
Consciousness, whatever it is, is not a unitary, simplistic phenomenon. All this talk of free will as a single, atomic quality of a brain smacks very much of reductionist thinking.
Nice article, I recently read quite a lot about free will as well so I was pleasantly surprised that you wrote about it. Though I am surprised you didn't mention compatibilism and Daniel Dennett in your article as I think they are currently considered the most relevant answers to the question.
Daniel Dennett even responded to Sam Harris, and Sam Harris responded back, which was kinda funny to read.
I think Sam Harris' background is Buddhism in which the self separated from everything else is an illusion so there cannot be a will absolutely free of external influences. But, as you said about free will, the concept of self is still a thing, even though Buddhists don't like concepts, because they are just representations of the real things, they don't deny that concepts exist.
So yeah this whole debate is completely empty because they are not talking about the same thing at all.
I like to answer the question of free will in that way, which is basically Daniel Dennett's argument:
We can deliberate on considerations that our mind generates, but the generation of those considerations and the final decision we make are not free of external influences.
But the important questions, to me, are completely different:
- How can we influence people in the "right" direction?
- How do we take care of people who follow the "wrong" direction?
- And who is going to decide what is "right" and what is "wrong"?
For non-dualist philosophies and religion, right and wrong are 2 parts of a whole and we cannot have one without the other. I like to consider that the concept and the actual thing (or the illusion) are 2 parts of a whole and one cannot be without the other, because it seems to me we can create concepts based on illusions.
Yes! You are not "just a machine"; you are a programmable machine --- I think people often don't understand the huge implications of that. I would say the essential "you" is the software the programmable machine is running. A further thought: determinism (even without randomness or quantum mechanical uncertainty) doesn't imply predictability. Alan Turing proved in 1936 that a general algorithm to solve the problem of determining, from a description of an arbitrary computer program and an input, whether the program will finish running, or continue to run forever does not exist. So in that sense the behaviour of some programs is unpredictable.
This is the most intense, numerous and thoughtful response to any of your writings that I've noted? Tomas, do you agree with that? You probably follow that count more than me.
What about the jurists in the Rittenhouse acquittal? Was that free will or the result of conditioning?
A couple of things. First, I noticed that your Maslow needs hierarchy omits the apex condition. In the latter years of his life Maslow revised the hierarchy to take into account his most recent thinking and research. It has been largely ignored by most psychologists because the new apex condition clashed with their beliefs.
Second, the camp that argues against "free will" is committed to the ontology of materialism, which requires absolute determinism. Probably one of the most depressing philosophies ever conceived when applied to human beings. I would suggest that if in fact belief in free will allows choices in behavior different from belief in determinism, that expansion of choice in and of itself undermines the notion that human behavior is an expression of simple determinism. I agree that behavior can't be free in the sense of being independent of antecedents. However, I prefer to think of behavior as being the product of statistical determinism, which is based on the idea that human behavior and the variables affecting it are so complex that given any set of antecedent circumstances there is a high probability that there are several possible outcomes. The highest probability outcome is what we often call the path of least resistance. It is the outcome most often exhibited and might be thought of as habitual or reflexive behavior. However, given a little reflection and intent not to make a habitual choice other possibilities arise. Perhaps this is what divides those who subscribe to free will and those that deny it. In any event, it is a complicated discussion.
Third, I would mention that scientist and philosopher Bernardo Kastrup has a small 100+ page book (Rationalist Spirituality) in which he addresses both the notions of free will and God that is well worth taking the time to read. Regards.
Neuroscience is probably not the lowest level at which we should analyze the issue of free will. I find the opinions of physicists like Brian Greene more appealing. Sabine Hossenfelder's video is also great https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpU_e3jh_FY
You quote a study that found people who believe less in free will then exhibit more immoral behaviour. An original creator (God) who loves us would create a exactly this, free will through an idea that he originally created and the agency (use) of which was and is in keeping with his perfect morality. Then the lie: "Did he really say..." putting a chink in trust and appealing to a desire to be God ourselves but instead seeking to destroy us...reducing agency and lowering the barrier to behaving immorally. The combination of bad experiences (or tumors) we all have is in a post-perfect world after we succumb to the original sin "you can be God".
I'm not convinced by the 3 arguments on free will itself, i.e I do not see the need for the conclusion to have to summon it into existence.
1. From your article, I understand: If basic needs aren't met, we want those -> our decisions are not free.
To which I say: most people I know *do* have their basic needs met and are making decisions on the rich set of options like "what hobby to pursue" or "who to invite to game night". I.e. the premise for this argument seems not to hold for many choices I make. On a global scale, I'm surely priviliged with my biological needs stably met, so I might be missing nuance here.
2. Then I understand: we have cognitive biases, thus no free will.
But when I am making a conscious and reflected decision, I try to quantify and overcome those, using rational thought more than instinct, especially for high stakes decisions (life partner, university major, career). Despite the mentioned powerful unconscious incentives: I make active choices not to give in to gaming or YouTube-binging urges. How is that not a free choice by my "higher brain"? (https://web.archive.org/web/20230101113702/https://waitbutwhy.com/2019/09/thinking-ladder.html)
3. In a setting devoid of real life meaning and stimulus, with a low stakes choice of "when to tap a finger", there is brain activity before we report that we made the call (which even looks to be a methodological issue, as you have linked to).
How is that relevant to important real choices where I make a (mental or even written) pro-contra-list and then choose my favorite option based on weighted importance of factors? There's hopefully lots of brain activity there before I reach a conclusion :).
Let me know if I'm misrepresenting the 3 arguments here or mising the point - that is certainly not my intention.
Very interesting. We can see the belief in free will as Pascal's wager.
Pascal's wager was conceived on shaky foundations, and doesn't stand up to scrutiny, but that doesn't mean we can't use his concept in a more solid way.
Applied to free will, it would be as follows: we don't know what we don't know about the universe. It's possible that the sum of what we know is infinitesimal compared to what there is to know.
So if we admit, for example, that with our current knowledge, there's a 90% chance that free will doesn't exist, Pascal's wager of free will would be as follows:
- If you don't believe in free will and you're right, you haven't won anything special, because as you pointed out in the article, this belief harms people rather than helps them.
- If you don't believe in free will and you're wrong, you've lost *a lot* of capacity, potentiality, joie de vivre for some, and what makes life worth living.
- If you believe in free will and you're wrong, at least you'll have experienced a pleasant illusion that makes life more enjoyable.
- If you believe in free will and you're right, then you have a better chance of realizing your potential as a human being.
Really, there's no reason not to believe in free will, unless you really place truth above all else, like Kant (which I can understand).
But putting truth above all else must also make you realize that we don't know what we don't know, and that it's possible that this 90% chance that free will doesn't exist will turn into 10% in the centuries to come, with the new knowledge about how the universe works that we'll learn.
It wouldn't be the first time in history that our beliefs have been proven wrong.
You didn't answer the second question from your own perspective! Such a thoughtful article though.
You concluded that free will doesn't exist, and asked us to believe in it anyway, since wishing free will into existence was possible - so, the argument should really be that you can predict "short term" decisions, but not longer term ones. This is exactly how things work in physics of the universe and math as well: local extrapolation is possible, but longer term is not. In particular, it is hard to predict what _effect_ such decisions (believing in free will, becoming more educated, decisions that go good/bad) will have on future decisions. In particular, I believe sleeping also changes the brain (neural connections, etc.) in ways that are difficult to predict - hence some randomness. So, you've convinced me short term free will probably does not exist: it's too late. Longer term free will could exist, in the sense that desiring a change could, by adaptation of the brain, cause it to happen. You know, if you truly desire it. Which would be a choice.
Arguably, that is how prayer works as well.
Which brings us back to: does God exist. As a mathematician and someone who believes in the scientific method, I believe the "logically correct answer" is agnosticism, since science can't prove or disprove God exists (proving God exists is obviously impossible: how could mere humans know what makes a being a God? But proving God does not exist is also impossible, because it requires one to have the knowledge of a God. So, if God or Gods do not exist, the only ones who can be certain of such a fact are Gods themselves - hence why many humans essentially view themselves as Gods - maybe Egyptian pharaohs back in the day had a point). Interestingly, the hitch hiker's guide series has a great take on this topic (God does not exist: God says you must have faith, but this one invention obviously is a gift from God, so not believing in God is foolish. Therefore, since faith is no longer required, God can no longer exist.) So does the D & D world (power of a God depends on their followers belief in them: without followers, there isn't faith in the God. Without the faith of people in the world, a God can obviously do nothing in a world in which they cannot actively intervene, for it would prevent the world's inhabitants from truly being "alive". Indeed, most religions correctly note that one can only experience the presence of God through either the actions of others, or experiencing an individual "oneness" with God that _has been experienced similarly by followers before us_. So it's all based on what "feels" like God.) I am a Christian scientist, by the way, and my choice to believe in God/Jesus has a lot to do with the type of life I have lived and the type of life I want to live, which is why this article resonates so well with me.
At the end of the day, these are fantastic philosophical questions, whose consideration will... you guessed it... shape the brain in ways that we cannot fully understand. And thus, will impact one's choices... at least, in the longer term... in ways that are utterly unpredictable. Science cannot explain everything - and accepting that again has mighty ramifications on the choices and beliefs a person might have.
Free will has been a bug a boo item for many thousands of years. In those traditions were reasoning alone is the faculty used for exploring its nature, the question “does free will exist” is nothing more than a 'black hole', where the only truth is emptiness. Many ancient traditions understood correctly what 'free will' is, while science no matter the number of disciplines involved simply cannot escape the limits of its (science) origins. Free will is a 'gift' so to speak, and from where and why are not relevant. It is the capacity to see and choose a path of creative (transcendent) outcome. Be it convenient, or otherwise, your choosing the early model of Maslow's Hierarchy is part of the general issue of not seeing the whole for want of its parts. The model to be used to address the question replaces “Self-Actualization” with “Cognitive Needs”, “Aesthetic Needs”, “Self Actualization”, and “Transcendence”. It should be evident that the lower levels of 'choice', in the hierarchy, are mostly mechanical, in the sense of being an animal. The higher one goes in the hierarchy the greater the 'need' for diminishing the part of “I need” to responsible (holistic) outcomes. The 'imprinting' process of human growth from birth to maturity is full of 'first time' events of learning; and then 'cognitively' using the means and outcome of these 'first time' events over and over with variation. So yes, a lot of the decision making scientist focus on it nothing more than a 'repeat'. The whole manner of looking and testing for this 'free will' misses the point; free will is a complex hierarchical process involving all the aspects of cognition, intuition, beliefs, values with the possibility of a transcendent outcome. And yes choices made at this level, after the first, become repeat decisions. If one's view of knowledge is that it is not limited, not closed, then one needs a decision 'apparatus' that is also open.
What is meant by saying "you have free will"? An important implication of that
statement is that _you_ choose, so _you_ are responsible for the consequences.
But who is this "you"? "You" is obviously not your brain, which operates
according to the laws of physics, which (aside from random and quantum effects)
are deterministic and do not allow choice. Incidentally, I think it is
unreasonable to think that "you" are a collection of random and quantum effects
because "you" would then have no consistent coherent personality.
I think it is very helpful to consider the analogy of a chess-playing
computer-program --- NOT a "chess playing computer" --- that is confusing the
hand and arm of a human player (which makes the moves) with the source of the
choice of move.
A chess-playing computer-program is not a physical object, although copies of
it exist on physical objects; it is "software" not "hardware".
A chess program considers its choices and arrives at a decision. The decision
is not determined by the computer; on the contrary, the software tells the
computer what to do.
The software is responsible for its choices; its choice is not forced by
the situation in its world (the chess board). In that sense, the software has
"free will", even though its effects in the physical world are produced in a
completely "mechanical" way.
There is surely nothing paradoxical or controversial about that (in the case of
a chess playing computer program). So why all the fuss in the case of a choice
making human?
The analogy can be extended. The choice made by the software is determined by
what the software is. It may be "bad" software that generally loses its chess
games, or "good" software, that generally wins.
If the software is rather sophisticated, it may learn to be "better" software
by understanding that its choices in earlier games were "bad".
The software makes choices based on its own subjective judgements: it looks
several moves ahead, but then it rates the resulting positions based on
heuristic rules --- which essentially are judgements of whether a position is
good or bad (based on piece counts, piece positions, threats and so on). The
judgements may be good or bad, depending on whether the rules are good or bad.
An interesting article, thank you.
This is exactly the kind of question where you have to be super careful as you can easily cherry-pick and make arguments for basically anything, with potentially profound effects on your approach to the world. I am actually not sure this is not a false dichotomy anyway, but I like how you approach it on different levels, i.e. as a fact or as a principle that we internalise.
I am not following Sam Harris much, but I have to say I understand compassion differently. I would say that at its base is the understanding that we are all fighting the very same battles. A different wording can very easily be used exactly to remove agency and make yourself a victim, or make yourself unable to give boundaries to people around, because meh, it's not their fault, let me just hug them. But there exists compassionate anger, even in Buddhism. You can be compassionate with a narcissist, but not giving strong boundaries will destroy you. It feels to me we have to be very careful here not to melt into this kind of all encompassing love bullshit.
Actually the approach to the world regarding being a victim vs. freedom/responsibility is very related, right? This feels more down to earth and it is definitely more adaptive to choose the latter approach, in general, regarding what experience with the world it implies.
Regarding the society, proving there is no free will, what would that be even good for? There must be some responsibility and accountability, otherwise the society would fall apart. Funnily enough, tribal societies hold you responsible usually even for stuff you do by accident, Western society tries to make a difference. So the tribal societies act as if you had nothing but free will, you are totally responsible for whatever you do. Switching to the other extreme would make no sense, which makes me think the question is somehow wrongly put, or that the context matters. To me it feels like you would not ask this question if you were not interested in simply removing your own agency or justifying your current position. But otherwise yeah, it is a fun question to ask, scientifically or philosophically.
The fact that some part of the brain is active before conscious awareness in that wrist-flick belies the question underlying that of free will—what part of your brain's activity is "you"?
Just because our "conscious" (whatever *that* is) awareness/statement of when we make a decision follows other neuroligical activity—necessarily!—doesn't mean that some other neural system isn't operating freely with the information it has available to it. (Not that I'm claiming it is; we don't know, yet, unless there've been studies on that that I haven't heard of.)
Consciousness, whatever it is, is not a unitary, simplistic phenomenon. All this talk of free will as a single, atomic quality of a brain smacks very much of reductionist thinking.
But I love your conclusion. :-)
Nice article, I recently read quite a lot about free will as well so I was pleasantly surprised that you wrote about it. Though I am surprised you didn't mention compatibilism and Daniel Dennett in your article as I think they are currently considered the most relevant answers to the question.
Daniel Dennett even responded to Sam Harris, and Sam Harris responded back, which was kinda funny to read.
I think Sam Harris' background is Buddhism in which the self separated from everything else is an illusion so there cannot be a will absolutely free of external influences. But, as you said about free will, the concept of self is still a thing, even though Buddhists don't like concepts, because they are just representations of the real things, they don't deny that concepts exist.
So yeah this whole debate is completely empty because they are not talking about the same thing at all.
I like to answer the question of free will in that way, which is basically Daniel Dennett's argument:
We can deliberate on considerations that our mind generates, but the generation of those considerations and the final decision we make are not free of external influences.
But the important questions, to me, are completely different:
- How can we influence people in the "right" direction?
- How do we take care of people who follow the "wrong" direction?
- And who is going to decide what is "right" and what is "wrong"?
For non-dualist philosophies and religion, right and wrong are 2 parts of a whole and we cannot have one without the other. I like to consider that the concept and the actual thing (or the illusion) are 2 parts of a whole and one cannot be without the other, because it seems to me we can create concepts based on illusions.
Hi Tomas,
Really interesting article.
My take on this has been to focus on what I call 'personal responsibility'. Keeping it present works towards looking after myself and others.
It is a concept well explained in a book I often recommend called 'Hilbilly elegy'. You will find interesting.
Genial Tomás!
I great short story about this is Ted Chiang's "what's expected about us" in the Exhalation collection. Great read.
Yes! You are not "just a machine"; you are a programmable machine --- I think people often don't understand the huge implications of that. I would say the essential "you" is the software the programmable machine is running. A further thought: determinism (even without randomness or quantum mechanical uncertainty) doesn't imply predictability. Alan Turing proved in 1936 that a general algorithm to solve the problem of determining, from a description of an arbitrary computer program and an input, whether the program will finish running, or continue to run forever does not exist. So in that sense the behaviour of some programs is unpredictable.
This is the most intense, numerous and thoughtful response to any of your writings that I've noted? Tomas, do you agree with that? You probably follow that count more than me.
What about the jurists in the Rittenhouse acquittal? Was that free will or the result of conditioning?
Hi Tomas,
A couple of things. First, I noticed that your Maslow needs hierarchy omits the apex condition. In the latter years of his life Maslow revised the hierarchy to take into account his most recent thinking and research. It has been largely ignored by most psychologists because the new apex condition clashed with their beliefs.
Second, the camp that argues against "free will" is committed to the ontology of materialism, which requires absolute determinism. Probably one of the most depressing philosophies ever conceived when applied to human beings. I would suggest that if in fact belief in free will allows choices in behavior different from belief in determinism, that expansion of choice in and of itself undermines the notion that human behavior is an expression of simple determinism. I agree that behavior can't be free in the sense of being independent of antecedents. However, I prefer to think of behavior as being the product of statistical determinism, which is based on the idea that human behavior and the variables affecting it are so complex that given any set of antecedent circumstances there is a high probability that there are several possible outcomes. The highest probability outcome is what we often call the path of least resistance. It is the outcome most often exhibited and might be thought of as habitual or reflexive behavior. However, given a little reflection and intent not to make a habitual choice other possibilities arise. Perhaps this is what divides those who subscribe to free will and those that deny it. In any event, it is a complicated discussion.
Third, I would mention that scientist and philosopher Bernardo Kastrup has a small 100+ page book (Rationalist Spirituality) in which he addresses both the notions of free will and God that is well worth taking the time to read. Regards.
The Nam-Shub of Thomas Pueyo
Neuroscience is probably not the lowest level at which we should analyze the issue of free will. I find the opinions of physicists like Brian Greene more appealing. Sabine Hossenfelder's video is also great https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpU_e3jh_FY
You quote a study that found people who believe less in free will then exhibit more immoral behaviour. An original creator (God) who loves us would create a exactly this, free will through an idea that he originally created and the agency (use) of which was and is in keeping with his perfect morality. Then the lie: "Did he really say..." putting a chink in trust and appealing to a desire to be God ourselves but instead seeking to destroy us...reducing agency and lowering the barrier to behaving immorally. The combination of bad experiences (or tumors) we all have is in a post-perfect world after we succumb to the original sin "you can be God".
I'm not convinced by the 3 arguments on free will itself, i.e I do not see the need for the conclusion to have to summon it into existence.
1. From your article, I understand: If basic needs aren't met, we want those -> our decisions are not free.
To which I say: most people I know *do* have their basic needs met and are making decisions on the rich set of options like "what hobby to pursue" or "who to invite to game night". I.e. the premise for this argument seems not to hold for many choices I make. On a global scale, I'm surely priviliged with my biological needs stably met, so I might be missing nuance here.
2. Then I understand: we have cognitive biases, thus no free will.
But when I am making a conscious and reflected decision, I try to quantify and overcome those, using rational thought more than instinct, especially for high stakes decisions (life partner, university major, career). Despite the mentioned powerful unconscious incentives: I make active choices not to give in to gaming or YouTube-binging urges. How is that not a free choice by my "higher brain"? (https://web.archive.org/web/20230101113702/https://waitbutwhy.com/2019/09/thinking-ladder.html)
3. In a setting devoid of real life meaning and stimulus, with a low stakes choice of "when to tap a finger", there is brain activity before we report that we made the call (which even looks to be a methodological issue, as you have linked to).
How is that relevant to important real choices where I make a (mental or even written) pro-contra-list and then choose my favorite option based on weighted importance of factors? There's hopefully lots of brain activity there before I reach a conclusion :).
Let me know if I'm misrepresenting the 3 arguments here or mising the point - that is certainly not my intention.
Very interesting. We can see the belief in free will as Pascal's wager.
Pascal's wager was conceived on shaky foundations, and doesn't stand up to scrutiny, but that doesn't mean we can't use his concept in a more solid way.
Applied to free will, it would be as follows: we don't know what we don't know about the universe. It's possible that the sum of what we know is infinitesimal compared to what there is to know.
So if we admit, for example, that with our current knowledge, there's a 90% chance that free will doesn't exist, Pascal's wager of free will would be as follows:
- If you don't believe in free will and you're right, you haven't won anything special, because as you pointed out in the article, this belief harms people rather than helps them.
- If you don't believe in free will and you're wrong, you've lost *a lot* of capacity, potentiality, joie de vivre for some, and what makes life worth living.
- If you believe in free will and you're wrong, at least you'll have experienced a pleasant illusion that makes life more enjoyable.
- If you believe in free will and you're right, then you have a better chance of realizing your potential as a human being.
Really, there's no reason not to believe in free will, unless you really place truth above all else, like Kant (which I can understand).
But putting truth above all else must also make you realize that we don't know what we don't know, and that it's possible that this 90% chance that free will doesn't exist will turn into 10% in the centuries to come, with the new knowledge about how the universe works that we'll learn.
It wouldn't be the first time in history that our beliefs have been proven wrong.