Why Free Will Is Incompatible with Human Experience

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Here is an argument against free-will that I made based on definitions I felt were the most general. I got them almost word for word from a dictionary. I’d like to hear any comments about the argument. I realize it is confusing and dense but I will elaborate where needed.

COMMON DEFINITIONS:

Free-will is often defined as ones ability to choose deliberately without the influence of external factors.

Choice is generally described as a desire to pick or select one or more options from a group of options.

Desire is your wish or want for a thing. Also it could be said to be your will for a thing. (Note that a reason for the purposes of the argument can be interchanged with desire.)

THE ARGUMENT:

A person is deciding what to eat and the options are between a hotdog and a sandwich. It is given that the person acts on a desire or reason for the selection. For example, "I want the hotdog because I feel like eating something cooked." The problem with applying free-will to this example is seen when you question the origin of the desire causing the selection of the hotdog over the sandwich. If we are to maintain free-will by definition we must have made a choice and have excluded all outside factors from the decision-making process. So, we must make sure that the desire or reason for picking the hotdog is solely our own. For the choice of the hotdog over the sandwich to be in agreement with free-will, the original desire for the hotdog must have been the result of another choice--a choice to desire the hotdog. This is because the choice to desire the hotdog allows for the chooser to give input to the process. If the desire is not chosen, the desire must have originated without the input of the person in question. So the desire for the hotdog is forced on that person by something outside the person’s awareness or will. Now we have two choices a choice to desire the hotdog and finally choosing the hotdog. This conclusion seems absurd but it is necessary otherwise the desire for a hotdog did not come from the person picking the hotdog but some other factor outside that person’s awareness. In other words, without that desire being the result of a choice with a group of options to select from, the desire is something forced and is determined.

Immediately, the need to justify a desire with a choice does not pose a problem. However, we can see that free-will's definition requires that all desires be the result of choices. If not, the desire originated without other options to select from and cannot be said to be free. So we can take our example back even farther down a chain of choices, choosing desires for every desire we make without end. For example, "....I choose from a group of options to desire...to desire a hotdog, to desire to desire a hotdog, to desire a hotdog, and then I finally choose the hotdog." This odd looking example is a series of choices, where each choice selects the following desire to prevent any part of the chain from violating the definition of free-will by allowing external factors i.e. factors not chosen by the person in question.

Now that we see what free-will requires of us, let us get to the point of how this contradicts what we are. Every choice that a human being makes takes a certain amount of time. Above I laid out a process based on what most would consider an acceptable definition of free-will. This process is an infinitely long series of choices, and this is an obvious contradiction of human experience. It would be equivalent to having infinite mental capacity, in that an infinite amount of choices could be executed in a finite amount of time which means the average amount of time it takes to make a choice is zero. This is the fundamental contradiction of free-will and it shows that all human beings are determined. We cannot account for the endless chain of choices needed to have free-will, at some point in time a desire was originated without our input. A desire that simply originates without choice is forced because without choice there was only one option for the desire. And all desires that we choose based on the external desire are guided by the external desire. So, all choices are ultimately determined.

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What happens in your example when you place two hotdogs in front of a person? Your eliminator via preference evaporates.

Further, the option of inaction is always present.

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@failures art,

Yes, all sorts of options could be added to the example whether there are more hotdogs or nothing at all. Also all variation of reasons and desires for choosing those options could also be included. This would have no affect on the argument however.

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@tomr,

Because you say so I suppose. I think it makes quite a dramatic difference on the argument.

Designing a scenario that would emphasize how we are influenced certainly is good for YOUR argument, but it does not fully explore YOUR argument. I can understand the preference YOU have for YOUR argument.

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@failures art,

I'm sorry, I should have explained why I said I did not think the number and types of options being chosen would hurt the argument.

If we add more options to our selection set as you suggest and include the option not to act, there would still be the initial desire that picks from the set of options specifying which option even if that option was not to act. The case I'm making rests more with the origin of the desire for an option in the set than what's in the option set.

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@tomr,

It's one thing to choose in your head what you would pick, but to not pick it is an active exercise. Your are trivializing the fact that a person may reject the dilemma altogether and that rejecting the dilemma is itself an act of free will.

Another example that comes to mind is that I may not be able to choose if I breathe, but certainly I can choose how I breathe. Not being able to turn off breathing is not proof that free will does not exist (sorry for the triple negative).

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@failures art,

When you say "It's one thing to choose in your head what you would pick, but to not pick it is an active exercise. ", I would ask if you are not picking the option in your head either to do something or nothing, then who is specifying the action and if it is not your choice which you would make through thoughts first before acting then I would say something external must be the originator of the will to perform or not perform the action.

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@tomr,

Who is specifying the action (of not picking)? You are.

If I walk through a park past a pretty flower, I am not forced to answer the question "do I pick it out of the ground?" If however I am debating this, I am the person who is specifying the action.

I have agency on picking the flower, and on the second order, whether or not to even ask the question at all.

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@tomr,

tomr wrote:

Free-will is often defined as ones ability to choose deliberately without the influence of external factors.
Choice is generally described as a desire to pick or select one or more options from a group of options.
Desire is your wish or want for a thing. Also it could be said to be your will for a thing.

None of these definitions is satisfactory and none accord to what is discussed in the free will debate.
1) a set of options is an external factor, so your definition of free will appears to be meaningless.
2) choice is not a desire, desires are elements in the means of evaluating options. A choice is a selection of exactly one member which is a proper subset of an option set.
3) desire is not will, will is conscious intention.

With this collection of vague and unsatisfactory definitions, you are well set up to burn a straw man or indulge in equivocations, but you do not have the basis for a philosophically interesting argument.

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@failures art,

Thats an interesting concept. In your example you walk by flowers and pick them up without thinking through the process in word form as i have used in my argument. I suppose the process of selecting options could be done in all sorts of ways mental as long as it made sense to the chooser. For example, you see the flower and get a mental image of picking it up. That could be equivalent to making the declaration, " I desire to pick the flower". Though this is not to your point.
Even though you are not forced to ask to select the option of your desire in some mental terms be they visual or audio. I am arguing that this is what is required to have free-will based on the definition I gave. I am not arguing against what you have said to be common experience because I understand what your talking about. I don't always think through options consciously in the question form I gave in the example. I argue that free-will requires that all wants for something must come from a choice or else we cannot say we had a hand in the desire that we base or choices on.

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@ughaibu,

1) A set of options is only an external factor until it enters the mind. Also, the external factors only apply to those things governing the desire and the options do not govern what the desire is.
2)You have a point here. Choice is more rightly a thought process in which a desire selects an option. I also like your definition and if you look closely at the argument, having a choice as a selection of exactly one member which is a proper subset of an option set would work equally well. But thank you for the correction I did miss that above a choice is a selection process not the desire.
3) Thank you for this correction also. I wrote that definition without looking from memory i should have been more careful. But ultimately the argument is not affected by these changes.

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@tomr,

tomr wrote:

ultimately the argument is not affected by these changes.

Okay, please skeletonise the argument in a short list of numbered propositions. It's difficult to extract it from your opening post. If I think any of the propositions need clarification, I'll ask.

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@tomr,

Not to nitpick (which is, I suppose, the conventional preface to an instance of nitpicking), but in reference to the title of the thread: What makes you think that free will need operate on the same level as human experience? I do not experience my part in larger economic trends, but my role effects my experience. Likewise, I do not experience my pancreatic gland's production of digestive enzymes, but that function plays a role in my experience as well.

Also, regarding decision making: I see a hotdog and a sandwich. I'm hungry, the hotdog looks better for X and Y reasons. I'm genetically predisposed to prefer the smell of hotdogs. In my childhood, I was tormented by other boys through their use of sandwiches (don't ask!) These various factors come into play in the quick weighing of options, the taking effect of genetic predisposition, etc. I reach for the hotdog, and eat it with relish (and mustard.) At what point did a choice take place? If you were trying to pinpoint it at a specific location in the various levels of concern or a specific moment in the various stages of my reaction to the two options, you might suggest that it doesn't exist. But perhaps "choice" is a collective name for these various stages, rather than a name for a specific stage; or the name for an event that spans the various levels. That probably doesn't solve your problem, but I think it is an important point to bring up when decision making is at issue.

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@tomr,

And you are obviously right although people seam to past trough the importance of what is fundamental in the argument...Divide to confuse is the motto...( a very common technique in this type of dispute...)

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@ughaibu,

Here is the skeleton version and I agree this method for showing an argument is far more clear. I hope these definitions are acceptable.

DEFINITIONS:

Free Will - ones ability to make a choice without the constraint of external factors. Where an external factor is anything that is not the will, conscious intent, of the chooser.

Choice - is a selection of exactly one member which is a proper subset of an option set. Or for the purposes of this argument, choice is a thought process where a desire for one option is taken from a group of options.

Desire - is a command to have something. To want or ask for something.

PROPOSITIONS:

1. For free-will to work by definition we cannot be ultimately forced to do something by something outside our will.

2. To make sure we have selected an option from a set of options for our own reasons and not something else we must have specified those reasons or the desire for taking that option. If we did not create the reasons or the desire for the selection then it was put there without our input and this contradicts the definition of free will.

3. To create a desire we must have had options to pick from or else there is only one option for the desire which came to be without our input so the desire is something forced and is determined. So to make sure our will creates the desire, the desire needs to be the result of a choice made by our will.

4. So to be in accord with free will every desire must be the result of a choice made by you. If not, there was only one option for the desire which was not decided by you.

5. Because of (4) there must be a choice for every desire. So when we desire something in a group of options we need to have made a choice for that desire and in that choice there had to be a “desire to desire something” and on and on. So that we get a chain of choices selecting desires without end. For example, “…. I desire to…desire something, I desire to desire something, I desire something and finally pick it.”

6. If (5) is not followed somewhere there will be a beginning to the chain of choices for desires. At that point, the desire originated without input from the chooser and because the desires are dependent on previous desires all following desires will be dictated by the original and the choice will have been ultimately determined by something outside his/her own conscious intent.

7. The problem with having an infinitely long chain of choices picking desires is that human beings cannot make an infinite amount of choices in a finite amount of time. This would be equivalent to being able to make a single choice in zero time. This is what I mean by incompatibility with human experience. It is known from our experiences that choices take time and that we do not use the process I described above and that I argue is necessary to the definition of free will.

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@Fil Albuquerque,

You are the first person I have ever had completely agree with me about this topic. I read in another forum your comment that you and others have made this same case too. Thanks alot for your input.

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@Razzleg,

By human experience I just mean the common experience of our thought process. As I say in Prop. (7) of the new version of the argument, I only mean that we do not follow the process I described that is necessary to free-will. I agree with your assessment of choice.

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@tomr,

You could certainly extrapolate the chain of choices back to right before a first choice to either survive, or not survive (for example), was made; and maybe find an impulse that was not of one's own construction. That seems like a whole other conversation.

But I don't see how that could argue that every choice made thereafter is somehow related to or dependent on the first choice as far as one's will at a given moment is concerned. And I don't see any reason to assume that there are an infinate amount of choices or chain of choices so I don't agree with number7.

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@tomr,

tomr wrote:

Free-will is often defined as ones ability to choose deliberately without the influence of external factors.

Who defines it in that way? Not people who ordinarily talk about doing things of their own free will. The other night I visited a new restaurant. I did so because a friend suggested I visit it because he thought I would like the food and the atmosphere. Now, I would not have gone to the restaurant unless my friend had suggested it. I guess you would describe that as being under the influence of external factors, namely, the suggestion of my friend that I visit the restaurant. Does that mean that I did not visit the restaurant of my own free will? Of course not!

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@tomr,

tomr wrote:

2. To make sure we have selected an option from a set of options for our own reasons and not something else we must have specified those reasons or the desire for taking that option. If we did not create the reasons or the desire for the selection then it was put there without our input and this contradicts the definition of free will.

At least three things are required for free will: an agent, a set of options and a means of evaluating options. You seem to be claiming that the agent doesn't have free will because the agent doesn't choose who they are or all their means of evaluating. This isn't so, and it's easy to see this by considering an analogy. If a person is hitch-hiking and they're dropped off at some crossroads with which they're unfamiliar, that person hasn't chosen to be at that location, but this doesn't prevent them from choosing which road to take next, does it?

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Why Free Will Is Incompatible with Human Experience

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