JCC If you don't believe in free will, you are bad and should feel bad

This is the only reasonable position at the end of the day. Most people act as if they have free will, whether or not we do.

 

Agreed with the above two posts. I think the issues of either trying to ascribe a numinous or scientific basis for "doing what we do" is tied to our yearning for meaning and purposes as a species, and not to any actual events or outcomes.

 

Well, okay, if you act inconsistently with your own previously-held beliefs, you are no longer a logically consistent person. This is perhaps something less than saying you have acted immorally, but I'll take it as something close.

But what happens if you read a really convincing Crick essay and your beliefs change? If I decide free will is a sham, am I then absolved if I dump hot sauce in some unsuspecting yutz's food?

 

Can you really "decide" that free will is a sham?

 

Couldn't one just as easily counter that moral framework would demand the action be punished regardless of the free will question? It's not like the punishment element would have any more choice in the matter.

 

Indeed. I am not really talking about anyone's opinion on the issue. I'm talking about the experience of human consciousness. Even for people that subscribe to determinsim, they are still aware of (and experience) the sensation that makes it seem like the world doesn't work that way. Though I guess I see your point about how this collapses my ethics analogy. If someone is aware something is fake, then they are held responsible for that knowledge. They don't get excused just because the illusion is particularly high quality.

 

Well, perhaps a determinist might describe the process of conversion as a "waking up" rather than a decision.

And there are people who just intuitively believe that nothing is in their personal control. This is a common belief among the very poor. I worked with poor kids for years, and some of them were absolutely convinced that people who did well in school were just born smart, or got lucky and were assigned easy classes. The same kids tended to do reckless things under the assumption that the date of their death was set in stone somewhere, and nothing they did would make that date come any sooner or later.

But I digress.

I had hoped we'd get some hard determinists in here who would want to give their interpretation of the ethics studies' conclusions. Perhaps they're all off doing whatever fate has decreed for them. (But not Fate. Because then they would be eating lunch.)

Edit: Ramza Ah, yes . . . the "I was fated to steal" and "I was fated to beat you" scenario. That may or may not be the foundation of a true moral framework, but it does keep society functioning.

 

This thread should have been a poll.

 

Why, so you could dance on it? OHHHHHHH

 

This thread proves FIDo right:

 

i can't read the article as it's bbc's international version, or something. but anyway, i agree with wocky that ultimately it doesn't really matter, but it's still an interesting topic to discuss on a theoretical level.

i agree with ophelia that the randomness found in quantum physics doesn't necessarily allow for free will. again i'm just a layman on such matters, but isn't this randommess more to do, at least in part, with our still limited knowledge of quantum physics; therefore surely arguing for the existence of free will based on quantum indeterminancy is a kind of "god of the gaps" line of argument? practically speaking all of our physical processes are governed by laws which work; our brains are governed by physical, electrical and chemical laws like any other system. where is this freedom, then? you could retrospectively apply a rationale to each and every decision you have ever made. you "chose" to do "x" simply because of "y" (and likely elements of "z", "b", "a" and so on). similarly i can project into the near future a host of decisions and actions that i will inevitably undertake.

 

It really doesn't matter for in the end, we are all but dust.

 

epic, the articles are called "Does non-belief in free will make us better or worse?" and "Does Belief in Free Will Make Us Better People?" if you want to do a Google search on them to find versions you can read. And fie upon the BBC! Don't they take television licensing fees from you in order to produce "international" content you can't read?

I found these articles interesting because they suggest that if we don't want others dosing us with hot sauce, we should encourage belief in free will, despite any evidence that it does not exist. Personally, I find the evidence for the absence of free will to be more intellectually compelling, but it's simply too depressing to imagine myself as a meat-robot being dragged along some inescapable path. I choose to believe in free will in the same way that Camus decided that life was preferable to suicide--out of a feeling that it's somehow affirming to spit in the eye of Reason. (Camus was fun at parties.)

If we all believe in free will here then I suppose there's not much to do but congratulate each other on our excellent taste in philosophies, which is sort of disappointing because I was hoping for a fight. Mostly, I'd like to see someone like Francis Crick grapple with the conflicting urges to spread the Truth as they know it with the desire not to be harassed by punks who don't feel responsible for their own actions.

 

epic, I am not suggesting that quantum mechanics firmly pins the tail to the free will donkey. I am merely suggesting it appears to be a nail in the coffin of determinism.

 

Really, though, what could possible be gained from a debate about free will? Just another merry go round in the JCC with everyone farting their opinions. It's not like there is any evidence for anyone to call up.

 

The "quantum mechanics, therefore no free will" reminds me of all the random **** people will use quantum mechanics to justify. I remember my "Religion and Science" course, in which some assigned reading made an argument that boiled down to "Quantum mechanics is crazy! Therefore God exists." I guess it was essentially a "God of the gaps" argument, but I didn't know that term at the time. I didn't like that class.

 

That assumes I formed a view and sought a quantum physics approach to justify it. Quite the opposite.

 

My position was that if you took quantum mechanics into account, it would lead to a position of hard indeterminism. And then I cautioned basing philosophy on scientific theories.

There is literally zero people here who have posted the position of "quantum mechanics means no free will."

 

I thought this point was really interesting and wanted to return to it. I do think it's sort of separate, though. One does not necessarily have to make a broader embrace of determinism to believe in selected points of, erm, destiny. In fact, I'd probably say that attempts to justify this sort of thing are both more common and more interesting.

 

...I don't suppose being tired excuses my confusion? I could've sworn somebody made that argument or ophelia brought it up as a hypothetical.

Oh well, the other way around is also annoying.

 

..."no free will, therefore quantum mechanics" is annoying?

 

So theoretically, I could have total free will regarding whether I illegally download a movie for free, but still have a romantic partner appointed to me by fate, or God, or the gods, or whatever? Or were you saying something different?

 

No, no. This is exactly my point.

 

Interesting. I don't know what kind of effect that belief would have on someone's moral worldview. The experiments didn't really touch on it. My prediction would be that the more things a person felt were governed by free will, the more personally responsible behavior they'd exhibit.

Now we just have to perform our own experiment. First, research guinea pigs . . .

To WNU!!