this post was submitted on 08 Sep 2023
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Huh, I always thought of us having free will in response to cause and efect, not in place of it. But maybe I'm understanding free will differently?
If the universe is deterministic, it means that every particle has an infinitely predictable path. And our body and brain are full of particles which could only ever move in the predetermined way. And because our thoughts are only movements of neurone, which in turn, as everything, are made of particles, every action of ours would be predetermined and we could never decide otherwise than we did.
I think Camus might have summed it up best when he said the only real choice (therefore, freedom to exercise will) humanity has is whether or not to commit suicide.
Whether or not free will is "real" in some rigidly technical measurable way, we have never known anything different than what we now experience as living beings. To me, telling people "free will doesn't exist!" is like telling them "you don't meet arbitrary standards of self-actualization that don't really exist anywhere else either!" and it has roughly the same effect on me: none, except that the speaker (in my experience, including offline conversations) often comes across as talking down to other people and maybe making them feel less good about their lived experiences.
I'm not religious, but I feel the same way about the kind of person that'd feel compelled to sneer "god's not real" at a religious funeral to feel superior.
https://existentialcomics.com/comic/125
I had a conversation with my neighbor along those lines. He reads his Bible everyday. I asked him if he knew that God were real, 100%, something/someone he could reach out and touch, if that would change how he lives his life.
I answered before he had a chance and said in no way would it change mine. I live my values. He said it wouldn't effect him either, and I believe, he is a genuinely great guy. But the fact that that would change soooo many people is either terrifying or makes me super grateful that they have their reasons to not indulge their worst instincts.
Both are unsettling, really.
There's quite a few versions of God that have hard determinism built right in, too. It's God's will that everything has a linear course, nothing can be changed, no choices are made, which means people are predestined to be punished for things they literally have no choice in.
In my opinion that's crushingly bleak and believing in and outright praising any sort of divine creator that'd punish their own creations for doing exactly what was planned for them is fucked up on so many levels.
I suppose such an entity would be an interesting premise for very dark horror literature.
sometimes your brain will decide something independently of conscious thought, and then invent a compelling narrative for why you are about to do what your brain already decided you were going to do
This kind of effect can be seen when a split brain person reacts to textual commands, like "stand up" seen on a computer screen in front of them only one eye can see by standing up, but when asked verbally why they stood up they just make up some shit on the fly like "I was tired of sitting and wanted to stretch my legs"
We're just narrative machines (no, not like ChatGPT)
It could be asserted that none of our decisions are ever actually real, and its all just a series of these 'decisions' that are just invented by your brain to explain why you're doing what you were always going to do, and thus you don't have free will you just tell yourself that you do as a nice story.
I don't believe that, I think that assertion is a bit like last tuesdayism and I dislike the unfalsifiablity of it, but yeah I get the argument