The man with a tumor has no choice but to do what he does. I do have choices, which I make all the time. Yes, my choices are constrained, by the laws of physics, my genetic inheritance, upbringing and education, the social, cultural, political, and intellectual context of my existence. And as Harris keeps pointing out, I didn’t choose to be born into this universe, to my parents, in this nation, at this time. I don’t choose to grow old and die.But just because my choices are limited doesn’t mean they don’t exist. Just because I don’t have absolute freedom doesn’t mean I have no freedom at all. Saying that free will doesn’t exist because it isn’t absolutely free is like saying truth doesn’t exist because we can’t achieve absolute, perfect knowledge.
Okay, that's good, right there. Good points. Now, hold up a minute; let's just look closer at what we mean by "choice" and "free" will, and then we should be— wait, what are you...? Hey, no, don't... aww, c'mon, really, don't say th...! Aww, man...
But the strange and wonderful thing about all organisms, and especially our species, is that mechanistic physical processes somehow give rise to phenomena that are not reducible to or determined by those physical processes. Human brains, in particular, generate human minds, which while subject to physical laws are influenced by non-physical factors, including ideas produced by other minds....We are physical creatures, but we are not just physical. We have free will because we are creatures of mind, meaning, ideas, not just matter. Harris perversely–willfully!–refuses to acknowledge this crushingly obvious and fundamental fact about us.
Sigh. It looked so promising for a moment there.
13 comments:
Forgive me, Scribbler, but I am not sure I disagree with him here.
I guess even the ideas of other minds are ultimately "physical" in some sense, and the processes we use to understand and "process" these ideas are physical, but as a metaphor...
As a metaphor, maybe, but he seriously thinks ideas are some sort of distinct metaphysical entity, opposed to mere matter. The same old Cartesian dualism. Maybe it's good old subject/verb formulations getting in the way again: if ideas are a noun, they must be a thing, etc.
He understands well enough that there is no such thing as an absolutely free will, but judging by his visceral loathing, as he put it, of "determinism", he still seems to think that it means something like predestination, as if what you thought was your free choice to have pizza instead of seafood tonight was actually woven into the thread of your life by Lachesis before you were even born.
Like I said to Noel recently, I haven't read Sam Harris' two most recent books, but I've read essays of his where he talks about the difference between there being "no answers in principle" vs. "no answers in practice", and I'm presuming that when he talks about not having free will, he's using that distinction again. He's right that in principle, there is a finite amount of factors involved in the making of any particular decision, and if we were able to study them all in real time, we could reliably predict what the person was going to choose. In practice, though, it's likely impossible, so for all practical intents and purposes, we're "free" to choose to the extent of our ability to reflect and envision alternative courses of action (such potential for abstract thought being, of course, a property of the physical brains we have).
Above all, though, I'd ask Horgan who this "you" is who's being completely controlled by "others". The whole free will vs. determinism argument is based on an illusory view of identity in the first place.
Is information "physical"? I honestly don't know.
The issue with free will is not determinism or knowledge, it is the simple fact that we are nothing more than physical systems behaving according to physical laws. I wouldn't think Horgan would reject these facts, though people with his attitude usually resort to question begging by saying that whatever it is we do when we exercise free will is free will. I'm not kidding - that's their argument. But your point about the illusion of identity is essentially saying the same thing.
Whoops - the editor didn't work and that was a little mixed up. I meant your argument was essentially the same as mine, not Horgan's!
Also, isn't Horgan arguing against his own point by saying we are influenced by external factors? No one says that choices don't exist, just that we make the choices we do for reasons that are beyond our control. Always. We are biological machines. Plants photosynthesize. We tell ourselves stories about how God-like we are. It's just what we do. I'm puzzled that someone like Horgan can't let go of that last Ptolemaic conceit.
I like how Patricia Churchland phrased it:
When the very abstract question of free will is put in this context, I am no longer sure exactly what the question is. If it means can we have self-control, then obviously the answer is yes. If it means can we create a choice with no causal antedecent, in all probability the answer is no. But the second question is not very interesting.
Hmmm... in what respect does the first question differ from the second? I think this is the kind of thing I meant when I said that some claim free will is what we do when we exercise free will. Self control is not free will if there are causal antecedents.
I think she's just saying that in the practical, everyday sense, we can exercise self-control through introspection. The resulting decisions aren't popping out from a vacuum, but so what? Like I said above, people like Horgan seem to think determinism equals predestination, as if you've already been fated to rob a bank, and no matter how much "you" are silently screaming, trying to resist the choice, you're going to go through with it.
Or, our self is not in conflict with our drives, but is rather the site where the drives themselves conflict, as one book on Neetch's philosophy put it.
re Horgan: I hope not - I think radical determinism has been thoroughly debunked.
That last line is good, but it just means our decisions are determined by a number of factors - so are volcanic eruptions. Again, saying free will is what we do when we make decisions that we ascribe to our "self", doesn't cut it.
That's why I don't even use the term, myself. if you say "there's no free will", people think you're telling them that they don't make choices, or that they are a helpless prisoner in their own heads, silently screaming as other people or forces compel them to act against their will. Better to spend the time focusing on our incoherent notions of identity.
Good point, but it's not a minor detail that the basis of our justice sense and system is a fiction.
Dude, our civilization is largely based on Bronze Age mythology and outdated Greek philosophy. Absurdity is woven into the very fabric of it; all you can do is laugh.
Anyway, I'll quote Michael Gazzaniga:
"The exquisite machine that generates our mental life also lives in a social world and develops rules for living within a social network. For the social network to function, each person assigns each other person responsibility for his or her actions. There are rules for traffic that exist and are only understood and adopted when cars interact. It is the same for human interactions. Just as we would not try to understand traffic by studying the mechanics of cars, we should not try to understand brains to understand the idea of responsibility. Responsibility exists at a different level of organization: the social level, not in our determined brains.
Viewing the age-old question of free will in this framework has many implications. Holding people responsible for their actions remains untouched and intact since that is a value granted by society. We all learn and obey rules, both personal and social. Following social rules, as they say, is part of our DNA. Virtually every human can follow rules no matter what mental state he or she is in."
I think that a revised conception of free will only poses a problem for justice and law if you accept the sort of predestination view I was talking about. And even law has some nuances with regard to actions performed under extreme duress, etc.
True. But Gazzaniga ignores the fact that the punishment model of justice is a fantasy, and works terribly, as opposed to the protection of society model, which actually makes sense, and could lead to a more efficient and effective system. I want violent people kept away from me. But punishing them is stupid; most of them have been punished all their lives. More is likely to make them more dangerous. You can't say our society is based on primitive ideas and then say it can't be improved. I'm all for holding people responsible for their actions. It' reasoning out what that means that needs to be improved.
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