
Ask HN:  How can you be rational and still believe in free will? - amichail
There is no scientific evidence for free will.  It may just be an illusion.<p>Moreover, there's scientific evidence against it: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=unconscious-decisions<p>How do you reconcile your rationality and a belief in free will?
======
Xurinos
I remember beating myself over this idea in college, that there is no such
thing as free will. I came to believe it. Then I realized something that was
even more important: it does not matter if it is true. This is not a form of
enlightenment that actually helps me or anyone.

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.

~~~
amichail
_In other words, it would be irrational to not operate on the assumption that
you have free will._

Religious people might say something similar about God's existence.

~~~
aidenn0
This is very different from Paschal's wager.

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.

------
devijvers
Both "rationality" and "free will" are vague terms. Your line of questioning
won't get you anywhere beyond linguistic/logic side-effects.

~~~
loup-vaillant
"Free will" may be. But "rationality" can be given a clear, concise definition
that most of us will agree upon in our context. Here, amichail probably talks
about epistemic rationality: the art of obtaining beliefs that correspond to
reality as closely as possible.

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.

------
mooism2
This is a Pascal's Wager question.

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.

~~~
devijvers
Exactly what I mean with linguistic/logic side-effects.

------
dspeyer
I have yet to hear a definition of free will that isn't circular. I am not
convinced the term means anything.

~~~
lulin
This. Let's say you had free will. In most definitions, this means you can do
what you want, without being forced by anything. But are you really free in
your choices? You still can not decide against anything you want. Your mind
(or soul, or whatever) will decide what you want to do, and then do that. You
may be in the mood to deliberately choose something that is bad for you, but
again, this is influenced by your mood. This is actually something I often
hear as a reason for free will: If we did not have it, we would never do
something that is against our interests. But this will only work if you assume
a mind that is both very simple (always trying to choose the best) and
extremely smart (so that it can differentiate between bad and good decisions).
There is no reason to think that we are like that.

------
viggity
That scientific american article always pissed me off. Just because my brain
may know what decision I'm going to make before I'm conscious of it, doesn't
mean that I didn't make the decision. It is still my brain.

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."

------
noodle
predictability doesn't necessarily preclude free will. free will doesn't imply
randomness.

~~~
amichail
There is no scientific evidence for free will. So why believe in it?

~~~
noodle
what defines free will, and what scientific evidence would sufficiently prove
your definition of free will?

~~~
amichail
One can ask something similar about proving the existence of God.

Why should you not believe in God on faith but believe in free will on faith?

~~~
noodle
sigh. i was really hoping you were trying to take this in another direction.

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.

~~~
Xurinos
> free will is an objectively observable phenomenon

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.

~~~
noodle
> To observe free will, you must have a really big picture view.

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?

~~~
Xurinos
> why? can you justify this statement?

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.

~~~
noodle
> ... then I would find fault with the theory that you have sufficient
> "observable data". That is the entire problem.

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?

~~~
Xurinos
> what do you feel like is the alternative to free will? predestination?

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?

~~~
noodle
so, it seems to me that we have different viewpoints. i would say that you
have free will until it is completely gone. if you're being manipulated, you
have free will but are being externally influenced, and you only have no free
will when you are completely predestined.

looks to me like you are the opposite, that you only have free will if you are
completely influence-free.

thoughts?

~~~
Xurinos
Hm. I think we are mostly the same. I would say that you have free will if,
after you have removed all possible influences, you are still able to choose.
Many things in life reduce your choices, but reduced choices are still
choices. We often have choices we ignore or neglect, too.

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).

~~~
noodle
you don't think that manipulation on the level of being able to fully remove
free will would have to originate from a fundamental force?

~~~
Xurinos
I can make my computer output the number 42, and we can argue that there is a
force behind me that resulted in that program to output 42 (as well as in
Scott Adams's choice of the number and my inevitable reading of his books, etc
etc). But it is easier to identify that I manipulated my computer to output
42.

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.

~~~
noodle
humans are sentient, though. yes, we have DNA that points us in a certain
direction, our environment and upbringing point us in a certain direction, but
this doesn't necessarily predetermine our outcomes. some people are a product
of these things, and others break out of the proverbial mold.

------
Luc
'Freedom evolves' by Daniel Dennett deals with this.
[http://www.amazon.com/Freedom-Evolves-Daniel-C-
Dennett/dp/01...](http://www.amazon.com/Freedom-Evolves-Daniel-C-
Dennett/dp/0142003840/)

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...

------
MattGrommes
I've always thought that our conception of "free will" is flawed. In the case
of the article you list, I don't see that as evidence against free will.
There's no homunculus in your subconscious making decisions for you that you
don't have access to. It's all your brain and its functions making decisions.
Just because we've labelled the very top of the iceberg free will or
consciousness doesn't mean that the rest of the iceberg under the water isn't
connected.

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.

------
elptacek
I am struggling with your definition of free will, here. I read that stub four
times, and I fail to see how preconscious brain activity proves or denies the
existence of rational, conscious decisions over choices? There's not enough
detail in the article to explain what "preconscious activity" means in this
case. Since nurture heavily influences all decision making, some part of the
rational, conscious process of choice must consult memory (experience).
Perhaps that's the preconscious activity? You don't think, "This time I will
stand still while the bear runs towards me." The consequences of free will
can't negate our survival as a species. That'd be dumb. So there has to be
some sort of middle ground.

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.

------
dhs
The belief in "free will" in a strict sense indeed strikes me an irrational
and unscientific, since it seems to imply "freedom from cause" - free will can
cause things, and nothing causes free will, since if something would cause
free will, it wouldn't be free, but bound to that other, external thing. And
since Science takes the view that there must be a cause for everything, the
assumption of free will does not seem to be in tune with it.

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.

------
JeffL
I view the debate over free will as missing the point about context. Context
is everything.

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.

------
Confusion

      Moreover, there's scientific evidence against it [..]
    

No, there isn't. All the interpretations of the results of the experiments
since Libet make one crucial unsupported assumption: that rationality and free
will must always be exercised by the conscious mind.

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.

------
Josh0
There was a science story published today on technologyreview.com that
reported on a team that purported to essentially prove that quantum
entanglement proves free will.

<http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/25665/>

~~~
dolphenstein
Neurons are way too big to be entangled (pun intended!) with quantum physics.
They act in a deterministic way. The only thing I could gleam from that
article is that atoms might have "free will". To that I say: So what?

------
joshuacc
1\. The idea that we are capable of freely deciding between alternatives seems
to be built into our psyches. Absent _compelling_ evidence to the contrary, it
is rational to believe this intuition.

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.

------
Wilduck
Have you read the following article?
<http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/25665/?ref=rss> It (partly) fills
in the other half of the free will theorem by Conway and Kochen (
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_will_theorem> ) which states that if we
have free will, then so must elementary particles.

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.

------
geophile
Daniel Wegner's book, "The Illusion of Conscious Will" discusses the existence
of free will, (not so much whether belief in it is rational):

[http://books.google.com/books?id=eQnlRg56piQC&printsec=f...](http://books.google.com/books?id=eQnlRg56piQC&printsec=frontcover&dq=wegner+%22free+will%22&source=bl&ots=ZWwqItY8L1&sig=6z40tqbViqrf-
em9f4QI8BHX_x0&hl=en&ei=YDF1TKWkHI3AsAPU95yhDQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=9&ved=0CD4Q6AEwCA#v=onepage&q=wegner%20%22free%20will%22&f=false)

------
orblivion
It depends how you define free will. What would scientific evidence of free
will even look like?

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.

------
indrax
What do you mean by free will? Was it a meaningful question in the first
place?

<http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Free_will>

------
zoomzoom
This is a hot topic in modern (in the philosophical sense of modern, not
necessarily contemporary) philosophy - the debate over what some will call
"compatabilism." IMHO, the rationality of free will hinges on the definition
of freedom. There is the freedom of not being a rock, and then the freedom of
dreams. There is free like free beer, free like free speech, and free like the
opposite of slave. Some are rational and some are, by definition, not.

------
nimai
Here's my take on it:

-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.

------
superk
After reading the article... in a scenario where subjects have a single task
(push a button) and no time limit, then unconscious trumps conscious thought.
I don't see how the unconscious could have much affect over rapid-fire
decisions involving extrinsic stimulation that could not have been
predetermined. Life is much more the latter of the two experiences so I don't
really get this as scientific evidence against free will.

------
mjgoins
I say this every time this topic comes up, which seems to be often, so I'm
sorry to sound like a broken record, but y'all need to read 'Freedom Evolves'
by Dan Dennett, followed up by his longer more important work, 'Consciousness
Explained.'

You might not agree with his conclusions, as they're fairly radical, but it
answers the question of the original post.

~~~
superk
Since you've read both books would you mind just summing up the jist of it.

~~~
mjgoins
Yes, the gist of both books is "There is no mysterious stuff out there, we
don't need God or even physics to explain the mind, it's all just computation
happening in your brain. Both consciousness and free will are ways of
describing some of the stuff that your brain does."

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.

------
126
Everything has already been done, except your life. Free will is not "instead
of" determinism... It is that "despite everything already being done"
something else... Now, me.

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.

------
mburney
If you define free will as conscious deliberation of action, it is easier to
make the claim that it exists

------
lhnz
I feel like this question is just not pragmatic. Unless, of course, you're
trying to avoid the blame for your actions by saying you have no real choice.

"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.

------
aidenn0
Well, I do believe in free will, but since free will doesn't exist, it's not
my fault.

------
mikecane
Philip K. Dick: The Electric Ant. I think that sums up everything, really.

------
vox
There is scientific evidence:
[https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Free_will_the...](https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Free_will_theorem)

~~~
registrationsux
No there is not. From the page you link: "Conway and Kochen do not prove that
free will does exist."

------
mikko
Free will is a potentiality. To attain it, you must first see that you do not
have it, and then work consistently for many years to develop it.

------
praptak
A related cartoon: <http://www.lukesurl.com/archives/1243>

------
Robin_Message
I read something recently saying that study was a load of bunk, but I can't
find it right now. Anyone else see that?

------
dolphenstein
Arthur Schopenhauer: "You are free to do what you want, but you are not free
to want what you want."

------
Estragon
I've never even heard an adequate _definition_ of free will, and don't think
one is possible.

------
superk
If you don't believe in free will does that mean you will always win in Rock-
Paper-Scissors?

------
BillGoates
There is no point in getting up either; eventually gravity will win.

------
heed
You can do what you will, but you can't will what you will.

------
frobozz
I have no choice but to believe in free will.

~~~
greatfog
[<http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Isaac_Bashevis_Singer>]

------
andreyf
What's "free will"?

