> In order for free will to exist there would need to be some force outside of normal physics
Is this an axiom?
Is this an axiom?
If the brain is just normal physics then your behavior is dictated by the laws of physics. This is not what most people consider free will.
Therefore, you would need something outside of physics for there to be free will. Like a spirit.
“Free will” is a cultural-linguistic construct. How could it be anything else? The very concepts of discrete individuals, let alone agency, is effectively arbitrary as far as physical forces are concerned.
The “things” that free will concern are already many, many layers of abstractions (and cultural-linguistic construction) away from the individual deterministic interactions of what we currently understand to be physics.
And, like all abstractions, these are leaky and imprecise. So trying to model or analyse their behavior in terms of deterministic physical interactions has always seemed misguided to me.
The Laws of Physics cannot dictate whether Schrodinger's cat dies because an atomic reaction happens, only that there is a specific probability for that happening.
So if the world is not deterministic neither are human brains. Physics cannot dictate what the brains think, it can only dictate what the probabilities for some neuron pathways opening or closing are.
It can all be broken down as follows:
Rewind time by a certain amount where the entire universe is exactly as it was at that instant. Start the replay. Do you make all the exact same choices, is the universe exactly the same when we get back to the present time?
If the answer is yes, then most people will accept that rejects the most common understanding of free will.
If the answer is no, then by what mechanism were different choices made? How did the neurons in your brain fire differently to make different choices? It must be random. And if it is just random, then that, to me (and many others) also rejects the most common understanding of free will.
But, that doesn't reject the idea of accountability within this system, because accountability is the feedback that directs the neurons to fire in a certain manner to make choices that soiciety prefers. If there was no accountability, no punishment for behaviour that was harmful to other individuals, it would not have good outcomes. So the system creates accountability. It must, because that accountability is part of the physical process by which choices are made.
I fully acknowledge that we feel like we have free will and that we should act like we have it. But it’s still an illusion.
Free will is the idea that there is a "you" and you are the author of your actions, or at least you can significantly influence your actions.
Of course, your actions are authored by the neurons in your brain but most people speak as if there is more to it than that. As if there is a "you" that exists outside the brain.
One of the debates around free will centers on an idea that free will means actions must be physically random. So, I think people understand that probability and randomness are really important pieces to understanding free will.
The missing link is understanding that probability is a state of mind. It doesn't matter that the physics is deterministic. (Deterministic physics is indeed also responsible for my current unique perception of my consciousness, so deterministic physics can do a whole heckuva lot.)
So, yes, my moment-by-moment decisions in the sea of the universe's physics and other conscious agents are determined by physics, but to all possible computational agents my moment-by-moment decisions and their affect on reality are weighted random.
That’s why it’s called free “will”. Will is an internal concept, it’s your desire determination, etc for something to happen.
Randomness is not really central to this discussion. What matters is the source, not whether the source is random or deterministic.