Wed 4 Jun 2008
To answer this question, it shouldn’t matter if you actually believe in free will or not. This is a counter-factual (though, personally, I don’t believe in free will).
Let’s say an entire world of people didn’t believe in free will (and that they were right). What would such a world be like?
Let’s say the world is otherwise like our world. If you’re temped to say, “That’s impossible. A world in which people don’t feel like they have free will would never wind up being anything like our world,” imagine this:
Super-intelligent aliens visit present-day Earth and explain to us that free-will doesn’t exist. They actually (somehow) prove to us that it doesn’t. Of course, some people don’t (or can’t) accept the proof, even though it’s iron-clad. So the aliens put something in our water — some chemical that forces us to see the truth. Suddenly, we all KNOW that there’s no free will.
What happens?
Posted by grumblebee
I’m hoping that you’ll all work with me on this one. If you find a hole in the specifics of my counter factual (e.g. “there’s no possible chemical that aliens could put in the water that would have this effect.”), I’m hoping you’ll focus on my main question, which is about what a culture would be like if its members have no sense of free will.
Suicide sounds good. And I’d have no moral issues with it because if it’s my destiny, being without free will and all, then it was part of the master plan to begin with.
So if we have no free will, then the arrival of the aliens would have been pre-determined as well, and I imagine there’d be a rash of suicides, all of which would have been fated to happen from the start. All the people who thought their actions actually meant something might just throw in the towel.
More interesting is what the world would be like if it *always knew* it had no free will. If every person born innately knew it, and we were never surprised with the knowledge. I guess in that world, we’d probably be conditioned to just playing out our stories, without worrying about what it would be like if our actions actually meant anything. It just sounds dull. Would we have been as innovative as we are? See, that’s my reaction to that kind of theory: why bother challenging myself, if whatever I’m destined to do is just going to happen anyway? Where does somebody get the motivation to push themselves?
There are a couple of things in your post, iguana, that really intrigue me:
All the people who thought their actions actually meant something might just throw in the towel.
I agree that some (many?) people would commit suicide, and maybe they would do so for the reason you state. But the thought process seems odd to me. Why would lack-of-free-will mean ones actions have no meaning?
Lets say we built a machine that could move forward and backward. And that we magically gave it free will. It could decided whether to move forward or backward. In the end, we’d have a machine that … moved forward and backward. What’s the “meaning”? I don’t see how free will generates meaning. It just generates the ability to choose. Sometimes, all choices are meaningless.
On the flip side, a hammer doesn’t have free will, but it’s not crazy to say that it has a purpose. If we’re “just cogs in a machine,” maybe we’re really useful cogs. Of course, the machine itself might be meaningless. But it also might not. Point is, what does free will have to do with “meaning” one way or another?
why bother challenging myself
It’s so hard (impossible) to escape from thinking in terms of free will. If there was no free will, you wouldn’t have a choice as to whether to challenge yourself or not. You would or you wouldn’t, depended on various causal events.
As a follow-up to my post, and also in response to grumblebee, I should state that it’s funny that I would make an argument involving all this “meaning”. I’m exactly not the person to talk to if you want to get into a philosophical discussion about “meaning” in life. Why are we here? I don’t think there’s a “reason” and I don’t think there’s any “meaning” to any of it. It just is. So for me to whine about, “Oh, my life no longer has meaning if I don’t have free will” is pretty self-contradictory.
So I take your comment to heart:
It’s so hard (impossible) to escape from thinking in terms of free will. If there was no free will, you wouldn’t have a choice as to whether to challenge yourself or not. You would or you wouldn’t, depended on various causal events.
You’re right, we wouldn’t even be thinking in terms of having a choice or not, because we never would have had one. We’d still just “be”. It would still just be what it is.
I’m still thinking about whether I have more to add.
How is it that free will is so special for humans? Think about the world of other creatures - pick something like tube worms, or daylilies - something we don’t think of as having free will. Does the lack of this supposed free will change their actions? They do not have a concept of free will*. So, I’d guess their actions would not change.
Now, some people have the concept of free will in their minds, and the loss of it, like any other “freedom” will probably cause some change in their behaviour. The basic needs of the oganism will remain the same, but the means and methods (and extra fluff) surronding obtaining these goals/needs will become much more direct.
*as far as we humans can guess….
I don’t believe in free will, but my “disbelief” is largely an intellectual layer on top of some pretty strong feelings that free will exists. I think these feelings prompt me to make plans. I have this (largely) irrational feeling that planning can bring about desired goals — in other words, I believe that I can get what I want via an act of will.
If I no longer believed this — or felt this — then plans might become less important to me. I might be more apt to “live in the moment,” accepting (or feeling, at any rate) that most of the time “shit happens.”
I’m not saying that planning can’t be a causal agent. It can, free will or no free will. But I think it’s a less powerful causal agent than I my feelings suggest. And, of course, without free will, I’m not the driver of my plans. I make the plans I make because I MUST make those plans.
It would be odd to feel — really feel — that I’m making plans because I have to, that I don’t have any choice as to what I’m going to plan (that the feeling of choosing plan A over plan B is an illusion: that I was always going to choose plan A), and that the outcome of my plan is also pre-ordained. If my plan happens to cause the desired outcome, it does so in the same sense that gravity causes apples to fall; it doesn’t do so in the “because I CHOSE that plan” sense.
I’m still not sure what gut-level knowledge of this — on a day-to-day, moment-to-moment level — would mean. At times, it feels to me that our consciousness is only made possible by the illusion of free will. If you take away that illusion, maybe consciousness goes with it (at least consciousness in the form we know it). At other times, I’m less sure of that.
Suddenly, we all KNOW that there’s no free will.
What happens?
Well, whatever was already determined to happen, either by God or by the momenta and positions of every particle in the universe.
What I’m getting at is, isn’t there a paradox in the question? If there’s truly no free will, provably so, then people will respond to that proof…however it was predetermined that they would. If there’s really no free will, then you can’t even talk about how feelings would change - those are all predetermined as well.
I’m not sure I get why the question is paradoxical.
Billiard balls don’t have free will, but we can still talk about what will happen to one when it gets hit by another one.
Also, I think we’d all agree — even believers in free will — that people in the real world don’t always have free will. If a man with an axe jumps out of the closet, I’ll get scared. We can talk about the chain of causation there, without evoking free will at all. Axe-murderer—-fear.
I find this stuff a little easier to think about (but not much easier) if I think about really simple, boring choices — rather than big, emotionally-charged choices that involve ethical reasoning.
Let’s say I’m hungry. There are two apples in front of me. They look exactly the same to me (neither one more appealing than the other) and they are equidistant from me.
In this thought experiment, I have no sense (no believe, no feeling of) free will. So what do I do? I can…
1. grab apple A.
2. grab apple B.
3. do nothing.
How does my action get determined?
If I were modeling myself on a computer, I’d build in all my knowledge, habits and prejudices — everything that would normally prompt me to pick one apple over another. But how would I model which-apple-to-pick when there was a tie between them?
I’d add boredom and desperation to the model: something that makes me more and more antsy to pick an apple — to pick SOME apple! Still, in the end, something must prompt me to pick one over the other (or to sit there, stuck). What?
Actually, as I type this out, I can see two alternatives — neither needs free will to exist.
1) Add a random-number-generator to the model, so that ties can be broken. This is probably what I’d use in an AI version of me.
2) Add low-level (atomic) prejudices, so that there’s no such thing — to my brain — as two identical apples. E.g. when in doubt, go with the one on the left.
I’m interested in Grumblebee’s assertion that it’s counter to the belief that we have no free will to believe that planning can increase the odds of an outcome in our favor. Sure, we may have no choice in the fact that we plan, but it makes good sense to plan — we have previously seen that people and organizations who plan and execute complex maneuvers are able to get what they want, and so we’re more likely to map out complex strategies to get what we want. These strategies probably do improve our odds of getting what we want versus those who, for whatever reason, do not plan so thoroughly. Lack of free will doesn’t contradict this, it just indicates that our desire to plan is the result of prior sensory input rather than some magical “choice,” and even in a situation in which we have free will, wouldn’t the same be true? IE, you can look at it as “I saw that planning was successful in other contexts, so I chose to plan here” vs. “I saw that planning was successful in other contexts, so it was inevitable (in combination with all the other things that shaped my neural wiring, and all the other events in the universe) that I would choose to plan or not to plan here.”
I, personally, believe I don’t have free will but mostly live my life without thinking about that — it’s nicer to believe that my consciousness isn’t just along for the ride, even if it may be somewhat intellectually dishonest. Unlike some dangerous beliefs (cough–lotsoforganizedreligionwithpoliticalaspirations–cough) at worst I’m lying to myself.
Well, life goes on as planned.
I have no opinion on the question, but I’m curious as to why everybody’s suddenly (guest).
I got tired of logging in all the time, since for whatever reason this site doesn’t leave me logged in. Oh wait, I’m *not* “guest” above. Well, I guess I will be now, since it’s telling me to log in and I’m refusing.
most people’s “experience’ of “Free-Will” is based on their sense of self, as a singular figure, distinct from the universal ground… in fact, most people exercise very little free-will, in the sense of acting volitionally, with self-awareness of motivations and habits; -that-is, with a consciousness that includes commonly- “non-conscious” -aspects of our experience; -thus, the definition of Free-Will is more of a consideration, here, rather than the What-Ifs of it’s existence or factual-ness.
one must free their Will, and will their Freedom, -to practise even a reasonable facsimile of “Free-Will”!
i usually recommend chakra-yogas, like the eightfold-way contemplations, etc., perhaps in a contemporary/ westernized- dialectic, like: “evolutionary-psychology”, “nuero-linguistic-programming’, and such.
[re: my entry in “The Urban Dictionary”, for the title/ term: “Anarch” / “anarch”]
Shadrak_Rhadamanthus_The_ShadowSphynx
Shadrak_Rhadamanthus_The_ShadowSphynx, you lost me.
I understood most of your first paragraph (I think), but what on Earth do you mean by “most people exercise very little free-will … with a consciousness that includes commonly - “non-conscious” - aspects of our experience…”?
Are you saying that people DO have a consciousness that includes non-conscious items or that they DON’T have one? And what do non-conscious items have to do with free will?
I’m even more confused by “thus, the definition of Free-Will is more of a consideration, here, rather than the What-Ifs of it’s existence or factual-ness.” Aren’t all definitions considerations? Actually, I’m not sure what “considerations” means — in the sense you’re using it. And what do you mean by “the What-Ifs of its existence”?
You say “one must free their Will, and will their Freedom,” so I take it that you believe in free will (though I’m confused on that point, too, because you talk about a “facsimile” of free will). Maybe that’s why I don’t understand you — because I don’t believe in it. I don’t believe people can — on any way — “free their will.” Nor do I believe they can will their freedom. To me, there’s no freedom to will.
There’s only a FEELING of free will. And most people (all people?) don’t have to do anything to get that feeling. They just get it naturally.
Hey, Grumblebee, thanx fer the feedback… BTW, i must confess/ protest that my post was slightly scattershot with the grammatical logic, as i’d been enjoying my second day of insomnia; -perhaps the muses were a tad muddled thereby….
Anywise, -to refer to your puzzlement over my sloppy statements, let me pluck over the key points:
-The “first-person”- Impression, or Experience, of Free-Will seems related to a healthy balance of introversion and extroversion; -in this sense, anyone could relate the feeling of Choice, (or Intention,) to their non-verbal or non-idea -based experience… -say as a secure “Id”, or emotionally- centered “Ego”; perhaps even as part of a developed “Super-ego”, in being responsible and fair in their social-adult interactions. Any of these focii might not have an intellectual- compliment, in their logical-mind, -which usually develops between Ego and Super-ego, (the sense of “Sense vs Nonsense”).
Now, not to get technical prematurely (pardon the pun-), but these four stages of character-developement, -here, borrowing Fruedian-terms, are the first four “Chakras” of Yoga: the Infant, Toddler, Pre-teen, & Teen [-to-social-adult] stages; -all have particular mechanics to their process & are considered as cumulating pyramidally;
-the protocols and precedence of these stages integrate as we grow; -but their consequential polarities remain sequenced in psychic- dominance; which plateau of our Experience cumulatively become sublimated, or sub-conscious, ie: up-staged by the current focus/ activity/ or stage-in- progress. We experience Sensations, Feelings, Ideas, and Values (or, Roles) in a mingled blend, as our Self-Awareness, but tend to be biased, (in “american/ literate/ or left-brain-oriented”- societies) to only refer to our minds’ Ideas, as particular “things”, or “statements of fact”. We confuse our Personal Reality with our ability to name or caption parts of Thought asif language only related to the Dictionary. Some (far-Eastern/ aboriginal-) cultures are more “right-brain” and lean to the Thesaurus -style of defining the “Actual”. -YADDA-YADDA-Yadda- as they say, eh?
Not to lunge at a tangent too abruptly, but -BTW: the “Chakras”, of Yoga, and-or “Evolutionary-Psych.”, etc., -are usually considered as a series of Eight (or more) strata, to human life and growth;
-usually, modernly, -Based on: -paradigms of evolutionary-steps being paralleled by individuals; -And, the central-nervous-system’s chain-links of each stage’s specific “Endocrine-Organs’”, ((which govern so-called Negative-Feedback, [or self-control & meta-stabilizing] in Volitional Intention, or our purposefull actions and re-actions thereby governed in nuerochemistry.))…
Not that being yogicly clearheaded (and free-to-feel-FreeWilled) relies on consciously knowing the “paint-by-numbers”-outline to analyse experience. It’s just a good rule-of-thumb to guide cultivation of self-awareness.
My main point, overall, is that we usually use so little of our potential, that we can seem (or be oblivious to our-) “mere”: animal/ robot- puppet aspects; tunnel-visioned, reflexes conditioned, sleepwalking slaves-of-habit, etc.!!! But this is but a perspective, coloured by the qualities of experience we Choose to Focus -on; & thus, Whether we wish to be Descisive, and take Initiative & Responsibility for the Fact; - What we emphasize, we enhance, -Be it existentially/ psychologicly/ biologicly/ artisticly, or However. (That is the gist of basic ZEN, you see. Or shamanism/ yoga/ magick/ therapy…!)
A quick example of how i apply such a “connect-the-dots, TO fill-in-the-blanks, TO paint-by-numbers”-; as Applied Philosophy :::
Data -becomes- Information -becomes- Fact -becomes- Truth -becomes Value -becomes- Knowledge -becomes- Wisdom -becomes- Understanding becomes- Identity
that’s the cumulation of experience as “True”-things; -there can be a similar dialectic for progressively “False”-things, in parallel… or “Imaginary”-things, even “Meaningless”-things, (-or “The Given”/ tautologicals/ universals) :><: That’s part of my trans-Hegel-ian Dialectic, out of a Unified-Theory-Field Metaphysix i’ve long been brewing!
So, GrumbleBee, a question: Do you know the great zen-koan riddle::
Q: “Is it all MIND over MATTER, or MATTER over MIND… ???”
A: “If it’s MATTER over MIND, it doesn’t MATTER; If it’s MIND over MATTER, i don’t MIND… !!!”
Anything i should clarify, yet, dude, -do tell!
Shadrak_Rhadamanthus_The_ShadowSphinx
I’m sorry, Shadrak_Rhadamanthus_The_ShadowSphinx. You totally lost me. I don’t understand your non-traditional punctuation, and it distracts me so much that I can’t focus on what you’re saying.
What do double-parenthesis mean? ((example)).
Why do you put words between -dashes-?
What is this for? :::
I’m not trying to give you a hard time. I’m genuinely baffled.
hey, Bee-Grumbles,
-my idiosyncratic punctuation is just a speedreader’s attempt to suggest the spoken-word, -if it’s spamming your input-filters, try re-writing the key terms or phrases; -perhap in your own syntax, or manner of speech … don’t fret about any unobvious “technical” intent in my overdone,improv- punctuation -marks; it’s just my textually- rendered suggestion of phoenetics, at best! If it doesn’t make the words talk to your mind’s-ear, just ignore the noise… -except or re-copy the content, eliminating the icing, and tell me if i actualy said anything, -wouldja?
Soon & @t Random,
Shadrak_Rhadamanthus_The_ShadowSphynx
-The “first-person”- Impression, or Experience, of Free-Will seems related to a healthy balance of introversion and extroversion; -in this sense, anyone could relate the feeling of Choice, (or Intention,) to their non-verbal or non-idea -based experience… -say as a secure “Id”, or emotionally- centered “Ego”; perhaps even as part of a developed “Super-ego”, in being responsible and fair in their social-adult interactions. Any of these focii might not have an intellectual- compliment, in their logical-mind, -which usually develops between Ego and Super-ego, (the sense of “Sense vs Nonsense”).
Okay, here’s what seems to be your first paragraph — rewritten with more-standard punctuation.
The first-person impression or experience of free will seems related to a healthy balance of introversion and extroversion; in this sense, anyone could relate the feeling of choice (or intention) to their non-verbal or non-idea-based experience — say as a secure “id” or emotionally-centered “ego” (perhaps even as part of a developed “super-ego,” in being responsible and fair in their social interactions.) Any of these focii might not have an intellectual compliment, in their logical mind, which usually develops between ego and super-ego (the sense of “Sense vs. Nonsense”).
I’m still lost. “the … experience of free will seems related to a health balance between introversion and extroversion.” I’m already confused. What is a healthy balance between introversion and extroversion like? Are you using those terms the way they’re normally used, as forms of social engagement? Introversion is spending time by yourself; extroversion is being “a party animal.” Or are you talking about “gazing inward” as opposed to concentrating on the external world?
In any case, what is a balance between those two forces? Sometimes spending time by yourself and sometimes going to the disco? Sometimes questioning your motives and sometimes looking at pretty landscapes? And how does this “balance” relate to free will?
Remember: my question was about what kind of world we’d live in if free will didn’t exist — if everyone was sure it didn’t exist. Are you answering that question or are you going off on some tangent of your own? If so, that’s fine, but you need to explain what the tangent is about.
Moving on: “…anyone could relate the feeling of choice … to their non-verbal… experience…” Lost again. What do you mean by non-verbal experience? There are lots of non-verbal experiences: thinking, feeling, daydreaming, praying (sometimes), remembering… Which of these is like free will and how is it like free will?
What on Earth do you mean by “a secure ‘id’”? According to my dictionary, an id (in Freudian Psychology) “serves as the source of instinctual impulse.” If an id is secure, does that mean it’s sure it’s going to get what it wants? That it has what it wants? Again, what does that have to do with free will?
Look, I understand that — roughly — in Freudian terms, the ego (the self) is torn between its base desires (the id) and its feelings of guilt and taboo (the super-ego). What does that have to do with free will?
Free will means that we’re able to make unconstrained choices. If I have free will, there is no force compelling me to eat or not eat a slice of pizza. I have total control over whether or not I eat the pizza.
Though I think they’re wrong, most people I know believe this sort of free will exists. I don’t believe it exists, but I feel as if it exists (I think that feeling is an illusion). My question was what would the world be like if no one had this feeling? If we all felt like whatever we did was pre-ordained?
I strongly urge you to write any reply using simple (one or two syllable) words. If you can’t do that, it might be a sign that you haven’t worked your ideas out clearly. Maybe you have a strong feeling about something, but you’re not yet able to explain it in a simple way. That’s fine. One needn’t explain everything one feels.
Or maybe I’m too dumb to understand what you’re saying. In any case, I need simple words and writing without too many abstractions packed together.
Hey, Grumblebee, -sorry to be distracted, -between re-started projects and a mild heatwave, i’ve been absentee awhile, eh?
For the moment, here’s a link fer ya to browse, if you like…
http://www.lodrodawa.dk/teachings/index.html
-it’s a zen- thing, about discovering your true Free Will, -told as a “story” of finding your Ox [cow], and getting it home…
Or: Finding Your Self, in the Experience of the World, within and without, -y’know, all that Zen- shite about getting centered and self-aware, so that all your choices are made with your whole self, in balance… -that sort of thing. Except for a few “technical” words in tibetan or indian (that you can get translated, or ignore!), the ten paragraphs or chapters of “The Ten Ox-Herding Pictures” are a good, simple but profound Sketch of Buddhist-Zen; - steps of a chakra-yoga, […or way to clarify all the channels of experience, and: “free your will; & will your freedom”, and all that].
I’ll be back to reply to your post, overnight-ish, dude.
Shadrak_Rhadamanthus_The_ShadowSphynx
oops, almost fergot, grumbly, -you might like this version better…
http://deoxy.org/8circuit.htm
it’s the eight chakras, as westernized a bit, by Tim Leary and Robert Anton Wilson. [-BTWay, later, they switched the themes of the six and seventh chakras, disagreeing on which sequence matched better… i like the switched re-edit, but- overall, this is pretty informative.
If no-one experienced/ or, believed-in Choice, it wouldn’t be called that, … -it would be seen as an abberrant disfunction, a glitch, of un-cooperative anarchy, like a one-celled cancer in the body of hive-society! Without self-determination, would we need/ have our individual self-conscious- selves, or just names or labels and functions, -all determined and uniform, like bees, “Borg”, or termites.
Shadrak_Rhadamanthus_The_ShadowSphynx
GB-
One last link, while i’m back and forth, -the more traditional chakra-yoga as steps in “The Eightfold Way”, basicly the Ox-Herding parable / chakras; -but perhaps a little clearer, perhaps less, but i had the link handy:
http://www.thebigview.com/buddhism/eightfoldpath.html
Shadrak_Rhadamanthus_The_ShadowSphynx
GB-
i skimmed the top o’ the page, and realized, i should have answered literally, as well:
–AS YOU POSTULATE::
Let’s say an entire world of people didn’t believe in free will (and that they were right). What would such a world be like?
Let’s say the world is otherwise like our world. If you’re temped to say, “That’s impossible. A world in which people don’t feel like they have free will would never wind up being anything like our world,” imagine this:
Super-intelligent aliens visit present-day Earth and explain to us that free-will doesn’t exist. They actually (somehow) prove to us that it doesn’t. Of course, some people don’t (or can’t) accept the proof, even though it’s iron-clad. So the aliens put something in our water — some chemical that forces us to see the truth. Suddenly, we all KNOW that there’s no free will.
What happens?
AS I THEORIZE::
The Resistance-fighters, Rebels would revolt, and get stomped-out, with Alien “aid”, branded as psycho-terrorists, Who Dared to (Act FreeWilled, and) Disagree with the “New World Order”! (-Seen as Insane Anarchists, the few groups of people who have separate water-supplies, thus, keeping them free of the Mind-Controlling Chemicals!) : [Ah-ha! : The Alien Dose of Stuff -that Proves the Lack of FreWill, By Removing It! The Aliens are secretly / blatantly, - Enslaving the majority!!!]
That’s how i’d see it goin’ down, dude.
So, as in most action movies, the obvious range of What-Ifs come to mind… Gritty Tales, of the end of the world as we know-it -type-Scenarios would be likely….
http://monkeydyne.com/rmcs/opencomic.phtml?rowid=65688
Shadrak_Rhadamanthus_The_ShadowSphynx