RE: Why we don't have the controversial kind of free will, why it's okay, and why it's important - part 2 of 2
Fascinating posts. I have no issue with determinism in and of itself, and certainly would not disagree with your practical conclusions relating to crime punishment/prevention and distribution of wealth, if only for simple humanitarian reasons. I also have no difficulty in believing that on the face of it, an organic mind functions no differently than an elaborately programmed computer or artificial intelligence.
Where I struggle is with what we call consciousness, or as I prefer, awareness, and how this leads each of us to believe that we are responsible for our own choices and actions.
If the deterministic view is correct, then what does this say about awareness? For me, the awareness that I experience (I am reluctant to say my awareness) seems to be the thing driving my inner monologue, and the thing that ultimately makes my decisions. The thing that has driven me to write this reply and chosen the words to put in it. To me it seems illogical that such a complex illusion could have ever evolved, given that in a deterministic universe the illusion of having to agonise over crucial decisions could surely only be an evolutionary disadvantage in life or death situations. Generally things do not evolve when they are not of utility to the species, so surely the facility to make decisions (or at the very least the illusion of having such) would only evolve if such a facility were useful?
Also, given science's current inability to explain how the biological machinery of our brains gives rise to awareness, the central phenomenon of our very being, could it genuinely be possible that awareness itself originate from elsewhere other than from the sum of events in our universe and our own personal history? I am guessing that this would be a libertarian argument, and that you would dismiss this as magic, but could it be simply that there are bits to this puzzle of which we are currently unaware? This is clearly veering into the territory of 'the universe as a simulation' argument as @alexgr has set out in his reply.
I appreciate I have probably not articulated this in the best way. As I said, although this is a topic that deeply intrigues me, I have no real background in philosophy, and only a little in science. Anyway, I would be fascinated to know your views on the nature and origin of the phenomenon of awareness as it is clearly very tightly bound to this topic.
Thanks @matrioshka! Interesting thoughts.
Yes consciousness (particularly what philosophers call qualia, to disambiguate it from the various uses of the term) is certainly mysterious; it's hard to see how it fits into a physical world. I hope to post on this issue too someday soon(ish).
But again just finding something non-physical is not enough for free will. I didn' t really emphasize this enough in my posts, but in the end it's not really about determinism or not. I keep linking to this Peter van Inwagen article in my replies, because this issue comes up a lot in comments. In this article van Inwagen argues that even (nonphysical) angels would face the same free will problem. Basically, we can ask of this non-physical consciousness: was there a reason it steered me this way rather than that? If yes, we ask for that reason; if no, it was random - and again either way we bottom out at something not truly yours.
Meanwhile, it's true we have a kind of running monologue in our heads that feels like the thing making the decisions. But there are two responses to this.
Thanks for your reply and the links. Again, really interesting stuff, and has had gears clanking and steam coming out of my ears for the last few hours as I’ve done my best to process it all. Now at least I feel a little more informed on the subject, and also have a better idea of the enormous amount of thought that has gone into it over the centuries, even if I don’t fully grasp all of the concepts.
For me though, this reading has brought me to the conclusion that whether or not free will genuinely exists is academic in a universe where everyone intuitively believes that it does. What I mean to say is that were someone able to give me explicit, easy to grasp and irrefutable proof that we inhabit a fully deterministic universe and that free will unquestionably does not exist; and even if I could fully understand and accept this evidence on an intellectual basis, deep within me I would still reject it. This is simply because my everyday experience of awareness leads me to believe that I do have free will; I believe that I weigh the evidence in any decisions that I make, believe that I am free to chose one way or another, and believe that the decisions evidently influence the unfolding of my life and the lives of others. I take accountability for these decisions, and believe that I should be held responsible for their impact on others, for better or worse. I accept that the decisions I make will have been influenced by my past and current state, however not that they are actually determined by them - I instinctively feel that the awareness that I experience has the freedom of choice over the options before me. In fact, I would go so far as to say that the ability to make these choices is one of the prime attributes of that very awareness. This awareness of choice will not stop even if someone proves that it does not exist, and I would not alter my decision making process on the basis of such evidence. I expect that this viewpoint is shared by the vast majority of people.
So, to the crux of this. From where I’m standing, there are either flaws in the arguments for the non-existence of free will, (and proof of this one way or another is far beyond my intellectual capability), or, if this is not the case, then the belief that one has free will is in actual fact of more consequence to everyday reality than the actual possession of free will. This latter possibility is a highly unusual proposition - in my life I have generally felt that evidence trumps belief when it comes to establishing reality, however, seemingly not so if your arguments are correct?
Ha this is a typical position to be in when doing philosophy ... feeling your worldview turning around and a bit stuck. The ancient Greeks called it aporia. It's not comfortable, sometimes - but it's better than being oblivious to the problem, right? I'm so glad you're considering this stuff so openly and honestly!
Probably you won't be able to respond to this given the reply depth limit (I've lost count) but let me add a few more things that might console you about not having free will - without pretending it's the last word.
I agree that you weigh evidence when you make decisions. I agree that your decisions influence the unfolding of your life and the lives of others. And I think you should be held responsible for the impact of these acts - at least, responsible the same way we hold sleepwalking Jane responsible, taking her knives and making her undergo treatment. All this can be true without your actions' being free (again, in the libertarian sense). You do choose things, based on your rich past, in basically the same way AlphaGo chooses its next move. And the things you choose affect what happens next (just as the move AlphaGo makes affects the next player's move).
So this may help some: it's easy to confuse causal determinism with what we often call fatalism - the idea that some future thing will happen no matter what comes before. So you might mistakenly reason to yourself that "well, either I'll make money on Steemit or I won't; since that's already determined, then it doesn't matter whether I actually post." I just recently learned this is called The Idle Argument, and maybe you can see why it doesn't work: if you are already causally determined to make money on Steemit, it's because you were already causally determined to post good stuff!