Moreover, there's scientific evidence against it: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=unconscious-decisions
How do you reconcile your rationality and a belief in free will?
Really, work through it. Congratulations: you discovered that everything you think and do is preordained by the first energy patterns of the universe. Now what? Do you second-guess your decisions? Isn't your second-guessing also preordained? Isn't your so-called enlightenment also just a part of the system? What does this knowledge really do for you?
Note that your quoted article does not oppose free will (unless you buy into the sensationalism). It points to the idea that a part of your brain figures out your next action before you are fully conscious of that decision. This does not invalidate free will; it just shows that you make decisions from multiple levels of your brain. You do not want too much decision-making power, like when your heart should next beat.
So, accepting that it is useless to believe in lack of free will, what happens if you decide to place your faith in having or acquiring free will? This opposite philosophy flows hand-in-hand with the idea of personal responsibility, the idea that you may actually be to blame for your own misfortunes and fortunes. There is a certain liberty in realizing that you have the power of Choice, that you can simply choose to leave these perceived/accepted traps and social constructs.
In other words, it would be irrational to not operate on the assumption that you have free will.
tl;dr - This philosophy does not help anyone. The opposite helps a great deal. Most people fall in the middle.
Religious people might say something similar about God's existence.
It is also interesting to note that scientific studies may show us things that influence or make some of our choices for us, but this will not cover all kinds of choices. We are running into areas where we do not yet have the right tools to study this stuff.
Believing in God and being a good person is miles and miles away from being a superstitious fanatic that wants to punish the infidels.
Similarly, you can be aware that certain decisions you make may have external influences ... versus being a lunatic that constantly fears the whole universe is against him.
Paschal's wager presents a false dichotomy: either you believe in no god, or you believe in the christian God.
There are a plethora of religions to choose from, and it is also possible that there is a very strange god who puts all athiests in heaven and all believers in hell. Therefore Paschal's wager breaks down.
However, we have a true binary split here when talking about free will.
If there is no free will then from a pragmatic point of view all philosophy is pointless, since it can't effect your decisions.
Source: http://lesswrong.com/lw/31/what_do_we_mean_by_rationality/
Now, the question of free will itself has been discussed. here: http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Free_will and there: http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Free_will_%28solution%29 are probably very good start points.
I haven't read these pages yet, but from what I have already read on http://lesswrong.com (which is quite a lot) is of outstanding quality.
If there is no free will, I have no choice over whether to believe in free will or not.
If free will does exist and I believe in it, I am correct to do so.
The whole thing reeks of nihilism.
In the words of the great Walter Sobchak: "Nihilists! Fuck me. I mean, say what you like about the tenets of National Socialism, Dude, at least it's an ethos."
Why should you not believe in God on faith but believe in free will on faith?
free will is an objectively observable phenomenon, and the burden of proof is on disproving existence or providing an alternate explanation for the observable. we might not be able to show the mechanisms for why it exists, but we can show that it exists.
god is not objectively observable, and so the burden of proof is on proving existence.
Not true. To observe free will, you must have a really big picture view. You must have enough information at hand to be absolutely confident that the action was not a direct result of all prior experiences of the actor. Until you have that kind of measurement, free will is a matter of faith.
> god is not objectively observable
That is a very human-centric view, and it would behoove any rational thinker to look beyond their own limitations. Again, it is all about having an appropriate instrument to observe Him.
But you may have a point about who owns the burden of proof. (I will not argue either way on who owns it, and whether we should prove or disprove.)
Edit: Sorry, my definition of "objectively" is skewed. Both free will and God can be objectively observed. You just have to have the right instruments, enough information.
why? can you justify this statement?
beyond that, that is not how the scientific method works. you make conclusions on observable data, and if more data becomes accessible, you reconsider conclusions. you can't dismiss conclusions you disagree with by simply saying "you don't have enough data yet to justify my conclusion".
> Again, it is all about having an appropriate instrument to observe Him.
could you elaborate on an appropriate instrument to appropriately observe and identify him in a way that is reproducible for others to also observe objectively?
Yes. Based on your next sentence, I think I see where the misunderstanding lies.
You state that the scientific method is about making conclusions on observable data and then discarding them when new data arrives. This is incomplete. Good scientific experiments depend on variables under your control. In layman's terms, you must be in control of everything, know what is going on, and test the specific thing, the one variable you are not controlling. And there are varying degrees of variables involved in the scientific method, along with their complexities.
Now, just in case we already agree and that your statement assumed all that, then I would find fault with the theory that you have sufficient "observable data". That is the entire problem. We already know what you are missing. You need the entire set of experiences that someone has stored in their brain. You need to know the state of the body as well, so that you can identify additional influences (such as a headache, making for hastier decisions based on more recent experiences). You need instruments that can provide you this data, and then you can run your statistics and learn something.
And, of course, you need to have an understanding of the influences of the various experiences and body issues; so you have many studies to run before you get to tackle the issue of free will. Fortunately, we have a LOT of these studies already (and a lot more to do). See psychology, etc.
> could you elaborate on an appropriate instrument to appropriately observe and identify him in a way that is reproducible for others to also observe objectively?
I am in full agreement with your criteria. Maybe one day we will have the technology to do this. Right now, I cannot imagine what the instrument is. I would propose that another god could observe God, or the context of the universe around God could be used in some fashion or produce an instrument to observe God. Maybe in God's metauniverse, there are entities analogous to our rocks, plants, and so forth that could be used to observe His passing.
Taking another approach, this might be akin to gut bacteria trying to prove the existence of Earth. If existence as we know it is an extension of God, how can we identify God? (Trying to avoid the obvious circular argument.)
Anyway, this is all freshman philosophy stuff. Good fodder for coffee talk. Suffice it to say that when we are talking science, we are indeed talking about using tools that "appropriately observe and identify him in a way that is reproducible for others to also observe objectively". Just because we do not have those tools does not invalidate truths about our universe. We did not have a yardstick until the 10th century. We have come a long way since then, and we have a long way to go.
i agree, and i think then it comes down to each of our own personal opinions, unless you have some hard facts to provide (i surely don't, as you say, this is basically coffee talk for me, here).
sub-question: what do you feel like is the alternative to free will? predestination? do you feel that by disproving free will, it will lead to greater empirical evidence of god or gods (a la "god's plan")? or that proving free will somehow reduces the odds of the existence of god or gods?
I would propose that the alternative is manipulation, and the most extreme form of manipulation is predestination. Less extreme forms are environmental manipulation, our bacterial collective, and so forth.
Was it predestined by God or by some initial atomic movement or potential energy? We do not have evidence either way, but it is fair to point out the possibilities. I have my personal belief, which is compatible with both and leaves space for the truth. I see the topic of free will orthogonal to the topic of gods.
We have to be careful here; there are religious beliefs that we humans were granted free will by God. Within that context, if we learn conclusively that free will does not exist, then there was no gift, and it is a blow towards God, although not necessarily disproving God. After all, if we are capable of deceit, isn't it possible that God is also capable of deceit? So what we think we understand from Him might only be what He wants us to see. We also may not be capable of understanding His reasons. In the same vein, HE may simply be a purely creative force with no reasoning other than to make a bunch of stuff and let what sticks stick.
So I think we can erode belief systems -- and our minds are generally frail enough to sway -- but it will be pretty difficult to disprove a god. On the other hand, opportunity may arise where a god can be proven. Perhaps He did reveal himself (several times), and time gave us an easy excuse to forget and deny, to beg for fresh evidence. Today, what could God possibly do that we cannot do that would conclusively prove His existence? And why should He bother?
looks to me like you are the opposite, that you only have free will if you are completely influence-free.
thoughts?
When I mentioned the manipulation, I meant that it was to be complete manipulation, whatever the source(s). My point was to differentiate it from predestiny, where the manipulator is a fundamental force (God or the movement of the structure of the universe).
Similarly, our environment may be affected by any number of forces, and we may be entirely pattern-matching, reacting machines who learned how to react from experiences in our environment.
Our future may be fixed, but our nature is not. We don't have a 'God's eye view' that sees all our past and future laid out before us. From our perspectives conditions change and we change to adapt to them to the extent possible.
It seems to me the confusion mainly arises if you consider your mind as being not subject to nature's laws...
There are a lot of studies about things like, for example, people saying they like someone more if the subject is exposed to warmth than if they're exposed to cold. Your brain still made that determination using all your experiences and patterns from your life, nothing "fooled" you or overrode your choice. We need to re-conceptualize our ideas of free will to include our whole brain, not just the magical separate part we've previously called our consciousness.
In the same vein, it's looking a lot like we're going to have to figure out how to fit "partly sentient" animals into our model of free will and consciousness as well. There are too many animals exhibiting behaviors we previously thought of as human only. I think both of these things will be big revolutions in thinking in the coming years.
I read something years ago that stuck with me. Let me make it clear that my own beliefs on the existence of a sentient creator cannot be proven or denied. He wrote, "God could have made us just like himself. But he did not. Instead he made us imperfect and gave us free will." There's a lot implied about our purpose in that statement. There will be no unified theory that does not take into account why we so badly want a unified theory.
However, even without the presence of "free will" in a strict sense, there can be freedom of action, in the sense of freedom from external and internal constrains, freedom from coercion and from compulsion. It means that I am able to recognize all my options in a situation and may freely chose between them. This easily acknowledges that my situation, my options and my choices all have causes (are not "free" in a strict sense), but still gives me the ability to change my world, by deliberately chosing the actions I prefer to take from the spectrum of those available under my current constrains. It also means that others can hold me responsible for the results of my actions.
An analogy would be rolling a dice with your hand onto a table. Is this random? A physicist could say, "no", how you roll it, what the speed it's going, how hard the table is, etc, etc, determine exactly what number will come up. But we don't know all that. To the context of our experience, that dice roll is random.
Similarly, everything we think or do is predetermined by the current state of the universe and our own nature, but to us, we are making choices. In the context of our human experience, we do have free will. Just like it could be theoretically possible to predict the dice roll, it is theoretically possible to predict any persons future action. But we don't have access to that information, so for us, that information, and thus the determination of the future might as well not exist.
Moreover, there's scientific evidence against it [..]
This assumption is unwarranted and a gross underestimation of the importance and abilities of our subconsciousness. There is no reason to suppose that your subconscious mind can't make a score of rational, and free, decisions, upon which your conscious mind gets to reflect only some time later. The fact that your mind came upon a conclusion in a subconscious manner does not mean it is irrational or 'unfree': it just means you didn't get the time to reflect on it, before it was acted upon.
2. While there may indeed be scientific evidence against free will, the article that you linked doesn't seem to provide it. Just because decisions happen at a preconscious level doesn't mean that the decision was unfree. For instance, if I'm playing a very intense video game, I tend to make split-second decisions with no conscious decision making. That doesn't mean I didn't choose what to do in the game. It just means that discursive thought isn't essential to free choice.
3. If you're religious, then you could consider God a sort of "guarantor" of free will.
It's an interesting way of looking at the problem. And I think I can say conclusively that we really have no idea whether or not elementary particles can have free will. However we do know that they don't function purely deterministically/probabalistically or randomly.
I do what I want, so that's all I care about. I may be part of a deterministic system, but that's what defines my will.
-You experience events.
-You seem to have control over some events, and other events seem to be outside of your control.
-The process that determines this feeling of control is chemical, and has nothing to do with whether or not you actually do have any control.
In other words, even though control is entirely an illusion, it is the illusion that defines our existence. Understanding it is NOT useless - most people who you would describe as "assholes" are just people with control issues.
You might not agree with his conclusions, as they're fairly radical, but it answers the question of the original post.
He's essentially a Functionalist. But he makes his arguments convincing. The convincing-ness cannot be summed up more briefly than he does in his books.
The real beauty is to turn that around and give your own turn to everyone else, and say: Now, you. Or, Namaste. I honor your plans for what to do in all this, peacefully.
"Oh, it's not my fault I attacked Y because I have no free will!"
If that is the case, good luck. Otherwise, live life how you 'choose' to live it.