Why Free Will Is Incompatible with Human Experience

@ughaibu,

Take this case. What if in the past you made a choice and there were all sorts of reasons for what you wanted to do. Now you go back to the point in time just before you make that choice, but all you know is what you knew then. In fact every circumstance is the same every thought you had and every feeling and sensation up until that point was the same and any other conditions were the same. Would you still make the same choice or would you be able to choose differently?

1 Reply

@tomr,

tomr wrote:

Take this case. What if in the past you made a choice and there were all sorts of reasons for what you wanted to do. Now you go back to the point in time just before you make that choice, but all you know is what you knew then. In fact every circumstance is the same every thought you had and every feeling and sensation up until that point was the same and any other conditions were the same. Would you still make the same choice or would you be able to choose differently?

If I had good reasons for making a particular choice and I were in the same situation, regardless of whether I went back in time, then I would make the same choice. For example, I have always chosen peaches rather than pineapple, and I expect that I always will, unless I'm unfamiliar with the local language and make a mistake. The fact that I would perform the same action does not have any impact on the question of free will, and the going back in time is irrelevant, all that matters is that I have realisable alternatives at the time of choosing.

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@ughaibu,

Yes going back in time is irrelevant all I want to know is what you would do under exact circumstances and you think you would have realisable alternatives. How do you know those alternatives are realisable? I want an argument like the one I gave about how you know the alternatives really exist.

1 Reply

@tomr,

tomr wrote:

How do you know those alternatives are realisable?

I can choose one of two numbers 01 and 10, if determinism is the case, then there is a fact now about which number I will choose on any future occasion. Similarly, if determinism is the case, then there is fact now about the result of any future occasion on which I toss a coin. There is no causal connection between the face shown by the coin and which number I choose, this is clear because if I do not look at the coin before choosing, my number will match the faces about half the time. However, I can choose to match the faces to my numbers so that if the coin shows heads I choose 01 and if it shows tails I choose 10, or equally, as 01 no more means heads than it means tails, I can match 10 to heads and 01 to tails. In fact there is an infinite number of ways that I can match the numbers to the coins, but these are the simplest. Nobody seriously denies that I can look at the result of tossing the coin and choose my number according to any system that I've devised for matching them. But in a determined world this is just a coincidence, and it's a coincidence which occurs for all of the results in a successive run of tests. As the probability of my numbers matching the coin is half for any one test, it's one divided by two to the power of n for any consecutive run of n tests. And as nobody seriously doubts that I can do this for any indefinite number of consecutive tests, the probability of determinism being the case is infinitely small and the probability that I have realisable alternatives is infinitely great.

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@ughaibu,

Quote:

I can choose one of two numbers 01 and 10, if determinism is the case, then there is a fact now about which number I will choose on any future occasion. Similarly, if determinism is the case, then there is fact now about the result of any future occasion on which I toss a coin. There is no causal connection between the face shown by the coin and which number I choose, this is clear because if I do not look at the coin before choosing, my number will match the faces about half the time. However, I can choose to match the faces to my numbers so that if the coin shows heads I choose 01 and if it shows tails I choose 10, or equally, as 01 no more means heads than it means tails, I can match 10 to heads and 01 to tails. In fact there is an infinite number of ways that I can match the numbers to the coins, but these are the simplest. Nobody seriously denies that I can look at the result of tossing the coin and choose my number according to any system that I've devised for matching them.

I understood everything until whats after the above. I see 1/2^n is something to do with combinations and trials, but it is not clear to me how you come to your conclusion. I really want to understand this could you try to elaborate or say in different words the last part.

1 Reply

@tomr,

tomr wrote:

I see 1/2^n is something to do with combinations and trials, but it is not clear to me how you come to your conclusion.

The probability of the coin showing heads and me choosing, for example, 01 or the coin showing tails and me choosing 10, is half, on each occasion. Over two occasions it's a quarter, over three it's an eighth, etc.

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@ughaibu,

So your saying that the series probability that you pick the same as the coin should become zero after an infinite number of trials. Would not this be true of any decision process even another coin flip or even in comparison to alternating the options. Say two coins flip and the probability they both land on heads is a quarter, for two trials that they both land on heads each time there is a sixteenth chance, and so on until the chance is zero at infinity. Why is this proof you have any free-will.

1 Reply

@tomr,

tomr wrote:

So your saying that the series probability that you pick the same as the coin should become zero after an infinite number of trials. Would not this be true of any decision process even another coin flip or even in comparison to alternating the options. Say two coins flip and the probability they both land on heads is a quarter, for two trials that they both land on heads each time there is a sixteenth chance, and so on until the chance is zero at infinity.

Sure, if you toss two coins, the probability that they'll always show the same face as each other becomes vanishingly small.

tomr wrote:

Why is this proof you have any free-will.

If the determinist is correct, and I have no realisable alternatives, then nothing is changed by what appears to be my decision to arbitrarily match my choice of numbers to faces of the coin. Thus the result is infinitely improbable. As determinism requires an infinitely improbable result to be the case, the probability of determinism being true is infinitely small. As the probability of determinism being true is infinitely small, there is a string of other arguments for rejecting determinism, no good reason to espouse realism about determinism and all healthy human adults unavoidably assume and successfully act on the reality of realisable alternatives, the claim that determinism is true and that there are no realisable alternatives should not be acceptable to any rational agent.

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@kennethamy,

Quote:

Where (or what) is the contradiction?

The contradiction is that if you follow your desire you are not in control of your act. Ultimately your act is determined by something you didn't desire, that is, by your desire that was not determined by your desire.

1 Reply

@ughaibu,

Quote:

There isn't one. This argument points at a requirement for free will and claims that because human beings meet that requirement, then they dont have free will. Free will also requires an agent, and an analogy of this threads argument is, 'no human chooses to be human, therefore no human has free will', but nobody should accept an argument like:
1) free will requires an agent
2) human beings are agents
3) therefore human beings dont have free will.

Requirement 2) doesn't hold, because an agent should be ultimately in control of his action. See my post above why he can't.

1 Reply

@litewave,

litewave wrote:

an agent should be ultimately in control of his action. See my post above why he can't.

But your reason doesn't cut any ice, you appear to be mistaken in what you think free will is and in what you think is meant by the world being determined.

1 Reply

@ughaibu,

Quote:

But your reason doesn't cut any ice, you appear to be mistaken in what you think free will is and in what you think is meant by the world being determined.

This is the whole explanation:

1. In order for X to be my free choice, it must be determined by my desire (intention) Y.
NOTE: this is a necessary condition for a free choice, because if my choice is not determined by my desire (intention) then it happens without my desire (intention) and so is unintentional.
2. If I don't choose my desire Y freely, then my choice X is determined by something I didn't choose freely and hence X is not my free choice.
3. If I choose my desire Y freely, then it must be determined by my desire Y2 (according to point no. 1).
4. If I don't choose my desire Y2 freely, then my choice Y and consequently X is determined by something I didn't choose freely and hence X is not my free choice.
5. If I choose my desire Y2 freely, then it must be determined by my desire Y3 (according to point no. 1). And so on. It's an infinite regress or there is a first desire that is not determined by another desire and is therefore not freely chosen. Hence, my choice X is never free.

2 Replies

@litewave,

litewave wrote:

2. If I don't choose my desire Y freely, then my choice X is determined by something I didn't choose freely and hence X is not my free choice.

This premise is nonsense. If I have a realisable alternative, that is if I can choose A or I can choose B, then I have met the relevant condition for free will.
Free will requires that there be:
1) a set of options
2) an agent
3) a means of evaluating the options.
You are claiming that there is no free will because requirement 23 is met, but it's a requirement, that a requirement is met can not possibly be a reason for that which requires it to be impossible.
According to your redefinition of free will, in order to have free will the agent would need to choose the set of options, and to choose what kind of agent they are and their means of evaluating options, and they would have to do this while not being an agent, having no set of options and no means of evaluation. In other words, to have free will, as you've redefined it, free will would need to be exercised without any of the requirements for free will. Which is just daft. The free will discussion has been going since, at latest the Greeks, obviously it wouldn't still be going on if the proponents were talking about this kind of illucid nonsense.

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@ughaibu,

BOOH

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@ughaibu,

I am out of power

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@litewave,

I like the way you explained this argument. I think the shorter it is the easier it is to understand. You get right to the point in 5 short steps. I like the use of the variables also it makes the argument easier to think about. It's just sometimes people ask what do you mean by what you write over and over. I think I've written the argument about 20 different ways trying to get it across to different people.

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@ughaibu,

Quote:

This premise is nonsense. If I have a realisable alternative, that is if I can choose A or I can choose B, then I have met the relevant condition for free will.

Are you saying regardless of what ultimately makes your decision as long as whatever made that decision is not determined to make that decision that you have free will?

I think it is clear that we can not ultimately have chosen the desires we have from the previous arguments.

1 Reply

The question further develops on what criteria do you have to chose what you chose...meaning when evaluating the options, you have to consider your state of need towards both possibility´s and see which one is closer to satisfy it...
Being you, yourself, in a defined state of need, you must chose the option that given your "computational capability" is closer to satisfy you towards your goal...and that is the problem...once your state of need depends on the Universe around you that undoubtedly forced you to that particular state !

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@litewave,

litewave wrote:

Quote:
Where (or what) is the contradiction?

The contradiction is that if you follow your desire you are not in control of your act. Ultimately your act is determined by something you didn't desire, that is, by your desire that was not determined by your desire.

I still don't see any contradiction, but aside from the fact that you might not know what a contradiction is, it is simply not true that if I do what I want to do, I am not in control of what I do. Suppose I want to eat a hamburger, and I eat a hamburger. Why is not my eating the hamburger not in my control. Not that I am sure what that would mean, anyway, but if it means that I would have been unable not to eat the hamburger if I had chosen not to, I see no reason to believe such a thing, and you have given me no reason to believe it. It might be that what causes me to desire to eat the hamburger is (say) that I am hungry. Well, I might have desired to be hungry, or I might not have desired to be hungry. Let's suppose I did not want to be hungry. So my desire to eat the hamburger was caused by my hunger (which, let us agree I did not desire). So what? Why should that mean that I did not eat the hamburger of my own free will? I was not compelled to eat the hamburger. Indeed, we have just agreed that I ate the hamburger because I wanted to do so. So why did I not eat the hamburger of my own free will-even if the cause of my wanting to eat the hamburger was not something I wanted. I don't see why the (your) conclusion that I did not eat the hamburger of my own free will follows from the premises that what caused my desire to eat the hamburger, namely hunger, was something I did not desire. That just seems to me what logicians call a "non sequitur". It simply does not follow. (What that mysterious contradiction you keep talking about is, I have no idea). If you can, make it explicit, and stop just alluding to it. (A contradiction (n case you forget, or simply do not know, is of the form, p and not-p). There is no contradiction in my doing of my own free will something I desire to do even if I do not desire to desire what I desire. If that is what you mean.

1 Reply

@tomr,

tomr wrote:

Are you saying regardless of what ultimately makes your decision as long as whatever made that decision is not determined to make that decision that you have free will?

There is nothing "ultimately" making an agent's decisions, they are made by the agent. And it has already been stated that free will is the making and enacting of conscious choices from amongst realisable alternatives. Therefore, if there are realisable alternatives, and if the agent consciously chooses from amongst them, then that agent has free will, that's all, end of story. And, as has also been stated, in order to make any kind of meaningful conscious choice, the agent needs a means of evaluation, and that includes instinctive drives, learned preferences, emotional reactions, etc. Your argument attempts to deny free will from the fact that the agent has a means of evaluation, but that is a requirement for free will. Frankly, the argument is as silly as the claim that a person cant walk because they have legs.

tomr wrote:

I think it is clear that we can not ultimately have chosen the desires we have from the previous arguments.

And it should be clear that this just isn't an objection to free will, because one could not have free will without a set of desires, or similar.

1 Reply

Why Free Will Is Incompatible with Human Experience

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