
There’s No Such Thing as Free Will - zachlatta
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/06/theres-no-such-thing-as-free-will/480750/?single_page=true
======
Phithagoras
_" there is also agreement in the scientific community that the firing of
neurons determines not just some or most but all of our thoughts, hopes,
memories, and dreams."_ is quite a strong argument against mental dualism and
traditional ideas about free will.

But research also supports the plasticity of the brain/mind and we know that
we can build/change habits and personality traits (apparently) through
conscious effort. Perhaps "free will" should be defined more specifically as
the ability to consciously shape the deterministic systems that are our minds?

~~~
StanislavPetrov
Exactly, which is why this article is tripe. It basically boils down to, "the
driver does not control the car, the steering wheel controls where the car
goes, not the driver". That's true, but the driver controls the steering
wheel, or at least has influence over it.

~~~
Amezarak
It's a self-driving car. There is no driver.

You are indeed conscious, and do indeed have thoughts. What the article
discusses is that the overwhelming evidence seems to show your thoughts are
generated by deterministic/proabilistic physical processes, and that in fact
your conscious thoughts occur _after_ your decisions are already made and
often serve only as post-hoc justifications of what you _already did._

Consciousness is just another component in the car. It doesn't determine or
influence where the car is going. Perhaps the most valuable part of
consciousness is it provides an effective way to use reflection which can
communicate data about the internal state of the car to the other cars. (Often
this data is objectively inaccurate, but still serves the interest of the car
or the fleet.)

~~~
Godel_unicode
> deterministic/proabilistic...

You do realize those aren't the same thing, right? In fact, they're basically
opposites. Deterministic is "if/then", while probabilistic is "maybe".
Something is either deterministic or probabilistic, and it matters which it
is.

In your metaphor, consciousness is the learning system which is used to
generate the model which drives the car. Our brains are semi-supervised
learning, and our models get retrained when they drift far enough.

~~~
Amezarak
> You do realize those aren't the same thing, right? In fact, they're
> basically opposites. Deterministic is "if/then", while probabilistic is
> "maybe". Something is either deterministic or probabilistic, and it matters
> which it is.

I say "deterministic/probabilistic" because I am thinking about physical laws;
i.e., what we know of physics and quantum mechanics. The intent is to exclude
the idea that consciousness is somehow above the rules of cause and effect. It
probably would be safer to just say "deterministic" to prevent all the magic-
shoehorning people sometimes attempt with QM, but I was being pedantic.

> In your metaphor, consciousness is the learning system which is used to
> generate the model which drives the car. Our brains are semi-supervised
> learning, and our models get retrained when they drift far enough.

No, in my metaphor, consciousness is totally unrelated to learning, as the
article suggested. In my metaphor consciousness is basically just part of the
network stack.

~~~
Godel_unicode
I misspoke, ^your metaphor^reality

I recommend you read the works of the scientist upon which my pseudonym is
based (not the Unicode part, that's just a dig at HN for the type of
characters they allow)

Briefly, you cannot fully describe a complex system using merely the axioms of
a less complex system (or more simplistically, all metaphors are (subtlety but
importantly) wrong).

This is especially true of quantum mechanics, but in general it's a good rule
to keep in mind. It prevents comfortable but naïve assumptions like "physics
is just Newton because that's what we can perceive", or assuming that
cognition is just summing neurons together.

In every aspect of life, you can safely assume that It's More Complicated Than
That.

------
damienkatz
Give me a concrete definition of free will. This is where such discussions
fall over, inadequate definitions.

~~~
exolymph
The ability to choose between options without the choice being determined by
prior conditions or influences.

~~~
pasquinelli
so then what else informs a free agent's choice?

~~~
pessimizer
And if you have a free agent without prior conditions or influences - how was
it made?

------
calebm
I think if you accept a materialistic ontology, you have no choice* but to
accept that you have no real choices - instead, your choices are illusions -
every action you take is purely a function the gears of the universe turning
(cause/effect).

* some people "choose" to believe in Compatibilism, which I consider a cop out.

~~~
Swizec
Even if every action is purely a function of the gears turning, you still have
state. As soon as you have state (memories/mood/etc), you have some level of
free will in the immediate sense.

Event X happens. How you react depends on your state of mind.

Same problem as with coding. As soon as outputs are not wholly dependent on
inputs, and they can have side-effects, all bets are off. Anything could
happen.

~~~
pbh101
But your state is also deterministically a function of your prior experiences,
per this model. If you consider the input the entire stream of events, rather
than each individual event, the output stream will be deterministic even with
state.

~~~
mercer
So basically it's still a 'pure' function in the end?

~~~
pbh101
Per the materialist/deterministic 'there is no free will' mental model, yes:
the function taking the input stream is pure.

On the per-event basis, this model boils down to a 'function' evaluating each
event with multiple outputs and inputs:

Inputs: the stimuli, mental state prior to stimuli

Outputs: your actions and resultant mental state

The output mental state is then the input for the next iteration/evaluation.

------
carsongross
_> There’s No Such Thing as Free Will_

 _> We’re better off believing in it anyway._

Nihilism is easy to start but hard to finish.

~~~
jsmith0295
I would disagree that we're better off. Well, maybe some people would be. But
personally, that information has actually had the ironic effect of making me
more effective at using my 'free will'. It's easier to try and be something
other than what you are if you believe you think you have more control than
you actually do, and that's a potentially huge waste of energy.

~~~
carsongross
You do realize the hysterically funny contradiction in your comment, correct?

~~~
jsmith0295
Yes, that was very much the point lol

~~~
carsongross
Excellent. :)

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hcayless
Doesn't the observation that people who believe in free will act differently
than people who don't demonstrate that free will exists? I'm perfectly willing
to accept that we have less free will than we think we do, and that there's a
physical basis for our mental processes. But why should that mean we have no
free will at all?

~~~
Strilanc
No. Why would it demonstrate that? Beliefs affect actions whether or not those
beliefs are accurate.

Consider: 'Does the observation that people who believe in [demons] act
differently than people who don't demonstrate that [demons] exist?'

~~~
hcayless
Not a good analogy. I'll put it another way: People who believe they can make
decisions for themselves act differently than people who don't. Are the former
not exercising some level of control over their actions? The belief itself is
neither here nor there. It's the fact that it makes a difference that I think
argues for the ability to control one's impulses to some degree. Is that not
free will?

~~~
mercer
I think it's actually a pretty good analogy. The vast majority of people I
know, regardless of whether they believe in free will or not, cannot help but
act as if they do. I'm one of them. I think there's little correlation between
belief and action in this particular issue, even more so than when it comes to
belief in demons.

But perhaps I'm not getting exactly what you're trying to say?

------
Amezarak
What we've learned through neuroscience is definitely invaluable, but it's not
like this is a new idea even in the philosophic community. It's telling that
the article opens by quoting Kant, who, as Nietzsche said:

> _Kant 's joke - Kant wanted to prove, in a way that would dumbfound the
> common man, that the common man was right: that was the secret joke of this
> soul. He wrote against the scholars in support of the popular prejudice, but
> for scholars and not for the people._

The idea of free will is a "popular prejudice" that has been supported almost
entirely by this type of philosopher. There is a quick way to identify them:
the appeal to intuition as the supreme arbiter of truth. Most of western
civilization believed in free will (in part for reasons of theology),
therefore the belief in free will was inculcated in the populace, therefore
philosophers found their intuition ultimately verified the existence of free
will and used their incredible intellects to rationalize what that confused
idea even was and how it worked in the face of obvious paradoxes.

Many philosophers, for thousands of years, did not accept these arguments. I
quote Nietzsche because he is eminently quotable:

> _Of these "inward facts" that seem to demonstrate causality, the primary and
> most persuasive one is that of the will as cause. The idea of consciousness
> ("spirit") or, later, that of the ego [I] (the "subject") as a cause are
> only afterbirths: first the causality of the will was firmly accepted as
> proved, as a fact, and these other concepts followed from it. But we have
> reservations about these concepts. Today we no longer believe any of this is
> true._

Nietzsche was in some ways more of a psychologist than a philosopher and is
worth reading on those grounds alone. In fact, according to Nietzsche,
philosophy is mostly interesting as a reflection of the philosopher's health
and therefore his psychology.

~~~
forkandwait
Could you give us citations? I love nietzsche...

~~~
Amezarak
I think _The Gay Science_ , _Beyond Good and Evil_ , and _A Genealogy of
Morality_ are very readable and thought-provoking without going into esoteric
ism or experimental style like _Thus Spake Zarathustra_. I prefer the Kaufman
translations, but I understand there are many new, possibly better
translations available now. Translation can make-or-break Nietzsche - he was
one of the best German prose writers and makes use of a lot of wordplay and
neologisms.

The first quote was from Gay Science - I grabbed the second of Wikipedia, but
I was sure it, or something to the same effect, was also in Gay Science. I
don't have a searchable copy of my favorite translation, unfortunately, but
Nietzsche talks a lot of psychology in Gay Science.

------
pessimizer
"Free will" is just a phrase that people made up to rationalize their desire
for retribution, punishment, and forcible conversion.

People who steal more when it is suggested that there is none probably suffer
from the same condition that people who feel that people who don't share their
religion are inherently unethical suffer from: axiomatic ethical principles,
rather than ethical principles that they derive from axioms.

edit: The most interesting positive thing I've ever read on the existence of a
thing that we call "free will" is _How Brains Make Up Their Minds_ [1] by
Walter J. Freeman[2], a person who I think has gotten closest to the mechanics
of how "consciousness" is automated. I don't mean to say that it's convincing,
because for me it wasn't; but the number of contortions that it takes for him
to make his point in the face of all of his physical theory is astounding, and
possibly the best case that could be made.

And he died last month, which I didn't know. How sad.

[1]
[http://sulcus.berkeley.edu/FreemanWWW/Books/HB/HowBrains.htm...](http://sulcus.berkeley.edu/FreemanWWW/Books/HB/HowBrains.html)

[2] [http://sulcus.berkeley.edu/](http://sulcus.berkeley.edu/)

------
gpderetta
I strongly belive the universe is for all intent and purposes casual [1], I
reject dualism and accept that free will objectively doesn't exist (in fact I
don't even think you can rigourously define it without invoking supernatural
entities).

Still I have no problem to accept free will as a subjective experience, the
same way I accept love, fear, hope, despair, and other states of mind,
including consciousness. They are just the way our mind work, byproducts in a
way. That doesn't mean that in principle one couldn't imagine mind without
them, but it would be alien to us an we would probably not even recognise as
intelligence.

I guess that makes me a compatibilist.

[1] modulo quantum indeterminism which seems to have surprisingly little
effect to the macro world.

------
jasonwatkinspdx
This article presents determinism as certain. That's not the case.

In terms of fundamental physics we know probabilities are determined, but the
exact outcomes are not. There's strong evidence that this isn't a matter of us
being ignorant of some hidden deterministic state (Bell's inequality
experiments) but rather is fundamental to how our universe works, though it's
not a totally settled debate. Whether this gives an escape hatch where our
brains are capable of free will is way too complex a question for me to think
it'll be settled empirically any time soon, but I personally suspect it's true
in a faint way. We're mostly reactive, but have some way to influence those
reactions over time.

------
forkandwait
It seems a false dichotomy in the article that either we have "free will" or
we are driven completely deterministically. No chaos? No probabilistic? No
subtlety....

~~~
putzdown
The problem goes even deeper than this. It's not merely a false dichotomy but
a false continuum. The implication is that minds are machines, and that as
machines they may be, at one extreme, deterministic (like a software program
that doesn't use `rand()`) or, at the other extreme, non-deterministic (like a
software program that does), or, somewhere in the middle, "chaotic" (like a
software program that doesn't use randomization but is sufficiently complex to
produce results that seem magical).

But surely we believe in "free will" not because we observe it in a lab but
because we experience it directly. Pick up a menu at a restaurant. Sure there
is mechanistic cause and effect going on in your selection—memories, sights,
smells—but there is also the direct experience of _choosing_. Whatever free
will is, it has to do with this experience of bringing a cause into the
universe essential ex nihilo, from within yourself.

Science is always compelled to dismiss these individual and personal
experiences and perceptions, and _as science_ rightly so. But as people we can
take them into account. And so we should. To dismiss the sense of "I" that
makes us, in fact, people is to cast away perhaps the most important part of
our world. We retain a sense of choice, of free will, not because it's a
compelling illusion but because it is in fact in large part what we are and
what we recognize others to be. Be careful with that word "illusion": you can
call something an illusion, but you then have to account for where the
illusion came from and why it functions so powerfully. I'd say that free will
is not an illusion so much as a thing that science deals badly with and is
therefore tempted to dismiss. Well, dismiss free will from the laboratory,
sure, but don't pretend we aren't free-willing things or you'll be left with
nothing but a lab, populated by not-quite-people.

~~~
mercer
> but there is also the direct experience of choosing. Whatever free will is,
> it has to do with this experience of bringing a cause into the universe
> essential ex nihilo, from within yourself.

Is this sort of what is meant with 'qualia'? I could never quite wrap my head
around what that concept means, in what context, and what its value is.

~~~
putzdown
Yes I think that's more or less it. You can describe the entire mechanism of
how an eye, optic nerve, and brain system sees the color green. In an ideal
world you could explain that mechanism in absolutely detail, down to the
molecule, down to the particle. Yet even if you did you would have said
nothing about the most important thing about seeing the color green, which is
the actual experience of doing so. That experience is what they call qualia.
You can have the experience without actually seeing anything—you can dream it
or imagine it, for example—which suggests that the experiencing is more
fundamental, maybe more "real" in some sense, than the mechanism. Yet modern
people, particularly of a scientific bent, have a dangerous tendency to
emphasize the mechanism over the experience, even to the extent of denying the
experience, and with it, the "person" part of people.

------
exolymph
I've written about this before with respect to mental illness -- I call it the
"illusion of autonomy": [http://sonyaellenmann.com/2015/04/free-will-mental-
illness-a...](http://sonyaellenmann.com/2015/04/free-will-mental-illness-
abuse.html)

------
skilesare
The reductionist falacy. It is ignoring the fact that the constituent systrms,
while built on the operations of subsystems, evolved specifically to overcome
the behavior of those sub systems.

------
charlieflowers
I must be missing something. If coming to doubt the existence of free will
causes people to behave less responsibly, doesn't that demonstrate that those
people do indeed have free will?

------
putzdown
Why the animosity toward free will, I wonder? I can see why it's not helpful
to neuroscientists. It's not a neuron, after all. It's not a material thing,
and so the material sciences don't reckon with it. But why does that make
anybody want to dismiss it from reality generally? Is there an assumption that
if it can't be studied in the lab, it can't exist? Boy I hope they're teaching
scientists better than that these days.

