Introduction and clarifications:
I was never a believer. As a child I was not Christianized, nor baptized nor indoctrinated in any religion.
I think it is necessary to clarify my different "background" so that it is understood that my motivations and conditioning were always different from those of the majority in the forums of ex-believers atheists.
I first heard of the expression "free will" (hereinafter F.W.) a few years ago, so I managed to reach my mature age without even knowing that there was such a concept or the controversy of thousands of years about its existence or non-existence.
Hence it can be understood that I never needed to believe that F.W. exists to justify the existence of a god that allows evil, nor to prove that the F.W. does not exist to be able to deny said god, since I never believed in anything supernatural like gods, demons, angels, witches, ghosts or talking snakes.
As Mario Bunge reminds us in Matter and Mind, free will is an invention of Saint Thomas Aquinas to try to explain why a good and omnipotent god allows evil to exist. It was a non-existent concept outside of theology (good fantasy literature according to Borges).
I decided to write this to put my ideas in order a bit, clarify and clarify myself, since writing helps to think, my opinion on the F.W. problem and the statements that I have been hearing often recently about the "cancellation" of guilt, merit and moral responsibility as a consequence of the non-existence of F.W.
Ok, let´s ramble:
Points of agreement:
The "classical definition of free will" doesn't make any sense. If I were to turn back the clock to the moment in which I committed that act that I wanted to change, in which all the conditions of the universe must be the same: each elementary particle in the same position, at the same speed and acceleration, same energy, spin, etc, all its identical properties, I couldn't decide to do anything other than what I already did because if I decided otherwise, something different would be happening in my brain, there would be other electrical currents, other chemical reactions, other synapses. It would not be the same universe in exactly the same conditions as the previous time. In other words and more shortly: it's not possible to change the past like in a sci-fi story.
There are no gods, no angels, no demons, no inmaterial souls.
So far I agree with all "non-free will " believers.
However, based on what I am writing below: I am agnostic about free will, and I consider it a bad idea to cancel guilt, merit and moral responsibility with the excuse that the "universe" is responsible but we are not, an idea that could be used to justify any behavior, good or bad, even criminal.
"Any form of behavior is compatible with determinism" (Ted Chiang, What is expected of us)
Contradictions, loops, vicious circles and inconsistencies that I see in the issue of the non-existence of F.W. and that are based on bringing these ideas to their ultimate consequences, instead of stopping where the pop culture of "there is no F.W." finds it appropriate to stop according to what is intended to be demonstrated.
Some science popularization authors so mediatic and recommendable as Yuval Harari and Sam Harris confuse the old well known and already classical social, psychological, biological, economic and cultural determinism with the lack of free will.
Others fall into flagrant contradictions:
Some say that there is social and legal responsibility, because they are cultural, but that moral responsibility does not exist. However, morality is also cultural.
A quote from somebody else´s comment I agree with : "The statement in her book "Existential Physics" by physicist Sabine Hossenfelder, (who has an excellent channel for popular science on YouTube), that "the future is fixed, except for occasional quantum events that we cannot influence" is seen undermined by her observation that “progress [in science] depends on choice and effort. It depends on us". Fortunately, it does." (See Sabine H.'s video on "free will" on Youtube.)
Yes, of course we are conditioned by our past, our genetics, our culture, upbringing, etc., this is nothing new. Sociologists, psychologists, psychiatrists, criminologists, criminal lawyers and other scholars and professionals take all this into account and it seems sufficient to regulate social norms and conduct, although nothing is perfect and errors, omissions and abuses are made.
These determinisms are not as extensive as causal determinism in physics, but they would be included in it if we think that everything is physical. However, I believe that one must have studied physics in some depth to get an good idea of the causal determinism that holds that all events are the result of natural laws and preceding conditions and causes even at elementary particle level. It´s not so intuitive for not physics literate people.
The unconscious conditioning that affects our decisions and actions was already studied in psychology long before we were born. Freud, Pavlov and other neurologists already determined in the Victorian era (more than 150 years ago, in 189...) that there are behaviors with non-conscious causes that do not depend on biology but on psychological/cultural determinism.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unconscious_mind]
Typical example of manipulation: Advertising
Most of us are manipulated, internationally and multiculturally, to think it's cool to wear jeans, t-shirts, designer sneakers and a baseball cap, pretty much everywhere in the world. Seriously, we all like the same and we choose to wear the same garments everywhere? Do we Latin Americans, Orientals, Arabs, Africans, New Zealanders, Scandinavians, Russians, Ukrainians and Vietnamese have the same taste in clothing?
The famous neurophysiology experiments by Libet and others supposedly show that our subconscious seems to do something before we are aware of it, as if the conscious mind elaborated the explanation after the subconscious has decided something. I think the subject is very contentious and controversial, it depends on what that something is, what signals are being measured and how they are measured, how they are interpreted, how you define what is subconscious and what is conscious and other "minutiae". It is not a simple subject. See: Agency: From Embodied Cognition To Free Will | HUMAN.MENTE Journal of Philosophical ( https://www.humanamente.eu/index.php/HM/issue/view/15)
They forget about the properties or emergent processes or emergencies,which are those properties or processes of a system that cannot be reduced to the properties or processes of its constituent parts; therefore it cannot be affirmed that because a cell, neuron, atom, etc. do not have F.W. then consciousness, which is an emergent system, does not have it either, and since we are made up of particles everything depends only on the properties of our particles whose "destiny" is already determined or random.
But even if we are made of particles, our particles, atoms and neurons don´t have consciousness but we do. Consciousness seems to be an emergent process of our brains that its constituent parts do not have. And maybe FW is an emergent property of our brains prefrontal cortex.
Examples:
The emergent properties of water are different from those of its components hydrogen and oxygen. (This observation by John Stuart Mill in the 19th century, 18..., is at the origin of the term "emergent")
Life itself is an emergent property of a successful combination of non-living chemicals in a favorable environment.
["The idea that anything radically new could ever arise has been resisted since Ecclesiastes asserted that "there is nothing new under the sun"..." The most popular idea about newness is that everything that appears to be new in reality previously existed in a latent form: that all things and all facts are "pregnant" with what can arise from them. A first example of this neophobia is the conception of causes as containing their effects, as expressed in the scholastic formula "There is nothing in the effect that has not been in the cause."
Preformationism, the ancient biological doctrine that all stages of a morphogenetic process are contained in the zygote, implies a new denial of novelty. Its contemporary successor is the doctrine that emerging new forms are contained in inherited "coded instructions": the genome would be fate.
Genetic information is, then, the heir to theological destiny and secular preformationism. (See Mahner and Bunge 1997, 280–294.) Instead, modern chemists have avoided preformationism. In particular, no chemist has speculated that hydrogen and oxygen are "pregnant" with water, just as no sane person has claimed that girls are born pregnant. Of course, potentiality precedes reality, but the latter is not contained in the former, but emerges from the conjunction of possibility and circumstance." (M.Bunge. Mind and matter)]
No one yet knows for sure what consciousness is (and I think that's the problem here).
Chaos is deterministic, quantum physics too. On the other hand, there are acausal and stochastic phenomena that are also lawful, they follow natural laws, they are deterministic. There are some elementary particles that decay, that is, they become other different particles without anything leading them to do so. That is to say, there is causal and acausal determinism. See Mario Bunge books: Mind and Matter and The Pseudosciences, what a scam!) or Gustavo.E. Romero: Scientific philosophy course on Youtube.
The idea of a universe without F.W. is like we are living as actors in a kind of "deterministic/random movie" where each thought or desire is determined (or is random), a causal chain that started at the Big Bang, or before, if there was any "before" (some astronomical observations that are currently appearing cast some doubts on the Big Bang theory. See for example Sabine Hossenfelder´s Youtube channel to find more about this subject).
Sam Harris and others explain the "there is no F.W." subject as watching that deterministic/random "movie" from the outside and urge us to make decisions to improve laws and watch out for mind manipulation, as if we were outside viewers of the movie . However, all of us, with our minds, our consciousness, are also inside it, nothing escapes determinism/randomness (!)
Another representative image of physical determinism is an infinite row of dominoes starting at the Big Bang; but what knocked over the first domino? Does the Big Bang have agency? Nothing has agency?
That movie develops but we don't know the end, so it's like the "book of destiny" that can't be read. An inaccessible information is irrelevant, it´s a non-existent information.
If we live in a simulation, in a virtual world imagined by a character from a P.K.Dick´s story, in a Matrix, or if we are someone else's dream like in that Jorge Luis Borges´ short story, we will never be able to know it... and it wouldn't change anything either.
Everything is determined, predetermined or written? I don't see the difference, perhaps it is necessary to study the subject more.
Summarizing: determinism = fatalism, because although our decisions matter we could not have decided otherwise.
But I don´t believe in fatalism.
In any case, I think decisions matter and whoever makes them is responsible even if he cannot make a different one, because he/she/it was the one who made it.
If we add some randomness, it seems that the degree of predetermination is reduced, so I understand that some people think that that this gives us a certain degree of freedom, but randomness cannot be controlled, by definition, and... the stochastic is also deterministic, like quantum physics.
Is there a difference between chance and indeterminism?
I think fatalism is not great because it produces inaction, resignation, depression, apathy, disconnection with personal, social and political reality, acceptance of what is unacceptable and could be changed if one acted.
Horrible phrase that makes me gag every time I hear it (and it happens very frequently): "what has to happen will happen". So it is a justification of anything good, bad, wrong, criminal, whatever you don´t want to be held responsible for. Even worse: it sounds like God's will, God's plan is all what happens.
Alledged practical applications of knowing that there is no F.W.:
More do-goodism and extenuating factors that are already applied. Sometimes good and sometimes very bad. Take, for example, the disaster of the consequences of the "yes is yes" law in Spain: hundreds of rapists released paradoxically due to the mistakes of a recently released feminist law (!). Imagine how the idea that no one has moral responsibility would be applied in reality... "My client is not to blame (as guilt and blame do not exist), Your Honor, it was the deterministic universe that made him rape and kill that woman." Really?
Do not hate those who harm us, because they are not responsible. It sounds akin to turning the other cheek and loving your enemy. Very Christian for an atheist.
Contradictions and paradoxes:
If we have no agency at all, our decisions are not ours and what we think and believe is determined or random, then how do we know that our belief that F.W. does not exist is true since it is determined, conditioned, as we do not freely choose to believe so?
What's more: all our scientific knowledge, emotions, feelings and beliefs would be questioned, since we have no control over any of them; what we perceive, believe, discover or feel is determined or random. Why believe something, even if there is scientific evidence of it if our belief in the evidence would also be determined, we don't choose to believe it?
Talks about the non-existence of F.W. usually end up advising us to change the laws to take into account the determinism that overrides F.W. (which is actually the old well known classical social/psychological/ determinism), but whatever decision, thought, or emotion we have about it is determined/random, so we can't follow that advice of our own accord since we don't have F.W., we're like zombies following the deterministic/random movie script.
The illusion of free will also makes us believe that we freely decide to improve the laws to take into account that no one has moral responsibility because the F.W. does not exist. It is a paradox.
They tell us :"It was inevitable, it had to happen because it was determined". Then they advise us to be aware of a possible mind hack, and to use the knowledge that we do not have F.W. to change our attitudes, modify laws, etc., to improve the world. This is a contradiction because if everything is conditioned, determined, and we don't have F.W., we can't freely decide to change anything, we'll just keep acting in that movie, whose ending we can´t know. But whatever has to happen will happen (!?)
The deterministic/random universe without F.W. is suspiciously similar to the one described by Indian philosophy where everything is already determined, even every thought and decision, such as turning left or right at the next intersection, deciding to get vaccinated or not, looking or not when crossing the street to avoid being hit by a truck, eating healthy or junk food, etc. It is like a fatalism at the micro-action and micro-decision level, micro or "possible nano", an infinite causal chain. I think this idea influenced San Harris, who spent time in India and Nepal, learning meditation techniques after his experiences with psychoactive drugs, before returning to the US and finishing his studies to become a neuroscientist. See: Sam Harris: Free will.
A few years ago, I help organize a discussion about free will, but people confused it with liberty. At the time I thought it had been a failure. No one had understood what it was about. However, now I think their reaction was totally logical: there is no difference, it's just a nice play on Schopenhauer's words:
“The man can, perhaps, do what he wants; but what he cannot do is want what he wants”
If we consider that there is no F.W. (classical definition):
I am going to express one of my problems with the subject with mathematical symbols, with dependent variables. where for example y=f(x) means that y is a function of x, that is, y depends on x.
I define 3 variables:
e=elections
d=wishes
c=deterministic-random configuration
my choices e depend on my desires d : e=f(d)
my desires d depend on c which is my deterministic-random configuration: d= f(d)
then e = f[d = f(c)] my choices depend on my desires which are a function of my deterministic-random configuration:
=> e = f(c)
Typical example: I choose vanilla ice cream because I like it better than chocolate (not true, but let's assume for the example). I couldn't have done otherwise since I don't like chocolate and I like vanilla. But to imagine that I could choose chocolate is an illusion. I don't see that there is freedom of choice because my deterministic-random setting makes me like vanilla more than chocolate and choose that vanilla flavor.
In other words, my choices depend on my deterministic-random configuration, that is, I am never free to choose, unless I consider freedom that nobody forces me to choose a flavor, for example by pointing a gun at me, in which case I don't have a free choice either, obviously.
What we want is always conditioned by determinism (or randomness), so we never have control.
What I believe:
That said, I believe that I am a conscious being and at the moment of making a decision I believe that "I" (whatever it is that I call "I") make it; if it is an illusion I cannot know. I couldn't have done otherwise given my deterministic/random history, but the choice is mine and I (whatever I am) am responsible, unless I have some mitigating factor such as a mental illness or some momentary madness.
It is not known how the universe began or what consciousness is. I believe that the problem of free will is closely linked to that of consciousness. We don't know what it is, we don't know what perceives the stimuli that arrive (to what or who?) through the senses, the nervous system and the brain and their emerging processes. We are asking ourselves what consciousness is from the very consciousness which we do not know what it is or how it works. We can hardly determine if we are free agents or not.
In my opinion, living in the illusion of free will or really having it does not affect anything, since if there is no F.W. we do not control the illusion, we cannot consciously change anything, because let´s remember: everything is already unconsciously conditioned .
I see no difference between the non-existence of free will and fatalism. If every event, even at the level of elementary particles, is determined, including my thoughts and actions, it is like the Hindu belief that everything is predetermined and there is nothing one can do. Indeterminate or random events don't give me control either. Eastern religions are right in this (?).
Then knowing that there is no F.W. does not change anything either, since the universe is fatalistic (that is, deterministic until the smallest micro event of the smallest elementary particle follows the causal chain that began in the Big Bang) with some random touch and no matter how I know, I can't alter anything because I don't have an agency.
My position regarding:
Determinism: I agree with and I quote "...one of the possible arguments against the possibility of demonstrating universal determinism...I think that all of them would point to the idea that the concepts and perspective necessary to demonstrate whether causation is a threat or not to freedom cannot be constructed from our perspective.It is not only that the concepts of freedom, responsibility, causality, determinism, etc. are central to our conception of ourselves and in our way of relating to others; it is a matter of constituting the conceptual system that is involved in any knowledge process, also when we claim to know the natural world or our position in it.Establishing whether or not we are determined would force us to adopt a totally objectivizing point of view, but to do so we should abandon our conceptual schemes, which are built from our perspective (and apply them self-referentially), that is, assume a perspective "from nowhere", which, obviously, is impossible. From this are probably derived paradoxes such as claiming to claim credit (which presupposes freedom) for having demonstrated determinism, or the fact that those who defend determinism do not seem to realize that thoughts will also be determined: therefore, if determinism is true, then determinists are determined to believe and defend it regardless of whether there are good reasons for doing so, and if it is false, then they are wrong.
This position that I suggest, however, is not a type of compatibilism. It does not hold that determinism and freedom are simultaneously true hypotheses.
It maintains (1) that both things are incompatible, (2) that determinism cannot be demonstrated empirically and (3) that freedom is guaranteed by an ineliminable subjective experience. We might doubt its reliability, just as we might doubt our perception of the external world. But that doesn't get us anywhere.
(Three challenges of neuroscience for Criminal Law.pdf by Daniel Gonzalez Lagier)
Dualism: No.
F.W.: I don't know (depends on the definition)
Moral responsibility: yes.
Guilt and merit: yes.
I like this idea:
"Mario Bunge, Argentine philosopher and scientist, was a defender of a deterministic and naturalistic vision of free will. In his opinion, human actions are determined by natural causes and there is no place for absolute or indeterminate freedom. However, he defends the existence of a form of "conditional" or "restricted" free will, based on the ability of people to make decisions and act according to their desires and values within the limits imposed by nature and society." (Wikipedia)
In other words, we are (partially) free but also restricted by the classic well known socio-psycho-biological determinism. So what´s new? Thomas Aquinas made humanity waste several centuries debating nonsense.
By the way: Bunge strongly supported the idea of psycho-neural identity: all mental processes are brain processes and there is a brain process for each mental one.
Moral responsibility, merit and guilt are good correctors of conduct. Guilt helps us by conditioning us so as not to make the same mistakes again, and merit reinforces our desire to do good things. Cancelling them doesn't make any sense, and even if we do it, it's not up to us with F.W. either. since it does not exist, it is another conditioning.
The morality and guilt I'm talking about have nothing to do with the fear of hell or divine punishment. Remember that I never believed in any religion or god, neither heaven nor hell.
Even the majority of scientists who currently believe that free will (classical definition) does not exist as it would be incompatible with determinism (and also with indeterminism and randomness) consider that we are indeed responsible for our actions. Each one invents his/her own logical pirouette, none of them really convince me and I still think there is a catch, something fishy here, some loop or vicious circle that we cannot glimpse, perhaps because we are observing from our own consciousness that does not escape determinism/randomness.
I don't know, nor do I care (beyond a certain scientific curiosity) whether F.W. exists. I prefer to live with some uncertainty to inventing an answer.
I think this ideology of "no free will" has contradictions and paradoxes like a religion.
Getting into deep trouble with a two or more thousand years old problem like free will and ending up canceling guilt, hatred, merit, and moral responsibility seems wrong and frankly dangerous to me. See any article/book about a psychopath´s profile and you will see that no feeling of guilt is one of their main features.
It sounds like another religious ideology, with the dogma "there is no F.W. brothers and sisters", let's not hate those who harm us because they are just natural phenomena like a hailstorm that ruins my car and I can't get angry with the storm, let's cancel moral responsibility, merit and guilt because we are not responsible for our choices or actions. Each one arranges matters inside their minds as they see fit, using allegedly incontestable arguments as excuse or justification. This very basic psychology.
I see this ideology of "There is no F.W." as another "religion" that ex-believers have made up because they need to believe in something solid, (since faith is addictive), that replaces the old one to free themselves from guilt and responsibility that they associate with sin, hell, god, revenge and hate, etc. for ever having believed in all that. Well, at least this is my amateur psychological interpretation.
What seems interesting to me from all this is the idea of being attentive to any attempt to manipulate our opinion through the media and social networks, something that has been happening for a long time. The distortion of information to divert our attention from the important things, to sell us products, ideas and political candidates is already a historical problem. Let's try to know our conditionings or determinants, which I think can sometimes be modified if necessary with cognitive psychology and/or psychiatry.
Disclaimer: If someone gets angry with my vehemence and I seem pedantic, impertinent or arrogant, keep in mind that I cannot help it, I am like a hailstorm, an erupting volcano, a natural phenomenon with which there is no point in getting angry, the universe made me like that; and if you get angry anyway, it´s OK, that was also determined. Naturally, it had to happen.
Some related books, articles and videos:
Non-fiction:
Elvio Falcinelli, Felice Piersanti: Freud and Pavlov.
Yuval N. Harari: Homo Deus and 21 lessons for the 21st century
Christian List: Why free will is real
Harris: Free will
Bruce Hood: The self illusion
Mario Bunge: Matter and mind and The pseudosciences what a scam!
Agency: From Embodied Cognition To Free Will | HUMAN.MIND Journal of Philosophical Studies
(https://www.humanamente.eu/index.php/HM/issue/view/15)
Mindmatters article, on George Musser, Christian List and others: Younger thinkers argue that free will is real:
https://mindmatters.ai/2019/05/younger-thinkers-now-argue-that-free-will-is-real/
Fiction. Mostly published in the 50s, 60s and 70s of the last century:
Jorge Luis Borges. The circular ruins (short story included in Fictions)
Julio Cortázar: The night face up. (short story included in Endgame)
Philip K. Dick: Ubik, Paycheck, Minority report, Do androids dream of electric sheep? (Blade runner), We can remember it for you wholesale (short story that gave rise to the movie Total recall), Oh, to be a blobel (short story), The electric ant (The electric ant) (short story), Eye in the sky.
Robert Heinlein: All you zombies and other stories about temporal paradoxes.
Arthur Clark: The end of eternity and The light of other days.
Ted Chiang: What is Expected of Us (short story specifically on free will)
Cinema: In general, sci-fi movies about time travel, parallel universes, modified memories, multiple and virtual realities, repeating days, temporal paradoxes, etc.
Videos:
Sabine Hossenfelder: You don't have free will, but don't worry.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpU_e3jh_FY
Peter van Inwagen: Big questions on free will.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AgDt5I2uib8
Crashcourse: Determinism vs. free will
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCGtkDzELAI
Crashcourse: Compatibilism
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KETTtiprINU
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