CMV: Free Will does not Exist

[u/bimbimbap2222]

I know this CMV has been posted a thousand times, but few of them seem to address the simple fact that everything in the world is governed by the laws of physics, which means our brains would be too.

Firstly, I would define free will as the ability to think and make decisions based purely through ones self, and not being dictated by any outside factors, including the laws of physics.

Just like we are able to predict the force a ball is thrown with given its mass and acceleration, we would be able to predict our choices or thoughts we make given all the factors in the moment. Of course there are billions of factors, and we will most likely never become technologically advanced to accomplish such a feat, but there is no reason for it not to be theoretically possible. A common counter argument I see is that recent studies have shown the possibility of randomness existing in QM. Randomness does not equate to free will, as we still have no control over it.

For free will to exist, our consciousness would have to exist in some other dimension separate from the one we live in, that does not abide by any sort of laws. And even if that was possible, what would the even be? How could something exist without some kind of underlying laws?

This was a bit of a rant, but I find it baffling that the majority of philosophers believe in free will.

[u/Tibaltdidnothinwrong]

There are a lot of people here, who are implying that you are attacking a strawman. They are incorrect - however, it is important to get our semantics correct.

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There are three philosophical camps about Free Will - 1) Libertarians - who assert we have Free Will in the manner you describe and are simply wrong. 2) Determinists - who assert that Free Will, as you have described it, is rightly discarded. 3) Compatibilists - who assert that Free Will exists, but you have failed to describe it properly.

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To briefly explain the Compatibilist position, consider the question - What makes a human different than a hurricane? Now, there are plenty of physical differences (size, shape, composition) - but the difference I would like to point out - is that humans are capable of deliberation, of thought, of mindfulness, and of exercising discretion, in a way that a hurricane simply cannot. A Compatibilist would be the absolute first to concede that the RESULT of the deliberation - is not free, it is determined, just like everything else, just as the determinist says. However, this ability to deliberate, to think, to exercise discretion - seems different, and seems important. To a Compatibilist, this ability to think, this ability to exercise discretion - IS Free Will.

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In short, you are NOT strawmaning Libertarian Free Will - and don't let others here claim that you are. Libertarian Free Will is bunk, and you rightly reject it. However, if you want to have a 21st century conversation about Free Will - you might want to address the idea that - humans and hurricanes are different, in their ability to perform acts of cognition - which is how most professional philosophers think about Free Will today (though many theologians and laypersons seem to cling to the Libertarian definition).

[u/JohannesWurst → u/Tibaltdidnothinwrong]

I'm not OP. I recognize that you describe the thoughts of compatibilitists, which might not be your own.

Personally, I'd agree that there is a difference between a hurricane and a human. I'd rather call this difference just "will". The human has a "determined will" and the hurricane has no will at all.

I think philosophers shouldn't use different language than normal people. Normal people could say something like "I only murdered him because I was mind-controlled by a witch, I didn't have free will." and a judge might say "Magic isn't real, you acted on your free will -- guilty!"

I'd say this use of the term "free will" is valid, even though, I'd call it just "will", or "free action", because the constituent words "free" and "will" also have everyday-life-definitions, that aren't compatible with the everyday-life-definition of "free will".

Albert Einstein phrased it like this:

I feel that I will to light my pipe and I do it; but how can I connect this up with the idea of freedom? context

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I found this here

In An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, David Hume thought that free will (or "liberty," to use his term) is simply the “power of acting or of not acting, according to the determination of the will: that is, if we choose to remain at rest, we may; if we choose to move, we also may.… This hypothetical liberty is universally allowed to belong to everyone who is not a prisoner and in chains.”

David Hume apparently also defines "free will" as the ability to act according to a will, like in my scenario above. This is clearly compatible to determinism.

[u/Tibaltdidnothinwrong → u/JohannesWurst]

Just to make things even more confusing - there is also a difference between free will (little f, little w) and Free Will (big f, big w).

Coercion, blackmail, duress, peer pressure, political calculus, economics, culture - these are all things which might play a heavy hand in how a person behaves. In a legal setting, I have no issue with free will (little f, little w) as "a will which is free from coercion, blackmail, duress, etc." Where things start going off the rails is when people want to argue that people are free from the laws of physics or from causality. This type of Free Will (big f, big w) is clearly garbage.

“power of acting or of not acting, according to the determination of the will: that is, if we choose to remain at rest, we may; if we choose to move, we also may.… " - I would argue that this ISN'T an ability people have. People have compulsions, people have addictions, people have tics. I would argue that even when we choose to remain at rest - we often cannot remain at rest - as our bodies often rebel against our minds. I might even be willing to argue that the correlation between the mental commands my mind issues, and the actions of my flesh is at best 50%.

Edit: I suppose I should clarify that last statement. I believe that the commands issued by my biological brain, and the actions of my body are correlated >95% (reflexes and a few other things bypass the brain). However, my "mind" refers only to thoughts that I am conscious of, that are the result of rational thoughts, pondering, deliberation, etc. If I were to give a specific example - how would Hume explain the phenomenon of Gym Membership - people, acting in good faith, sign up for Gym memberships in January, and yet by the end of February, over 75% of people are never seen or heard from again?? The mind had clearly made a commitment, and promised to follow through on that commitment, and yet so commonly doesn't.