Free Will is a Social Construct Based on an Illusion

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Whose discretion? Whose mind?

I am again reminded of the Zen Buddhist "questions":

Who is dragging this corpse around?

Who is eating?

Before you were born what was your original face?

Well, I just mean, that its ideas and ideals do not depend upon an acausal will. I don't even believe it depends on behavior stemming from a belief in an acausal will, but rather that it stresses agency and that even though the actions of agents may stem from causes, the agents themselves cannot be separated from their actions and thus receive the blame for the action.


I don't think so. Why does it matter if we are independent of the world? It is not as if anyone has ever accepted solipsism and then gone on to care about what others say. The issue is that the essential "me" IS the interaction of the genes, parents, environment, diet, etc. I mean, why be so rapt up in a self separated from the self? You are your nature, it is not as if you get angry or exhausted but some other self, completely distant from that, watches this.


Oppressive? Why does this "oppression" of identity matter? Some are taught better behaviors, given better genes, and are in all senses better, why is that a problem? Because it seems arbitrary? Isn't the very concept of free will arbitrary as well? In fact, when it comes down to it, every single thing that anyone ever has cared about or is concerned about ends up at an arbitrary point. Just because you assigned some mythological power to free will, but don't assign this mythological power to a man's nature does not mean that one is truly superior to the other.


Your discretion, your mind. You may argue that these things are determined and caused, but that does not mean that the phenomena do not exist. Just because consciousness is a matter of brain states and hyperlinks are matters of electrons does not mean that either of them do not exist.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greedy_reductionism

It has been assumed by many that a multiple universe would provide flexibility but unfortunately our very limited perceptive capabilities have trapped us into the illusion that time implies some sort of motion freedom. This is an illusion. I do not know why this illusion of motion exists or why we perceive the universe in this manner but it might be compared to a consciousness reading a book where the entire time line of the book is totally fixed but the events within the context of the book remain relatively unpredictable from the point of view of the reader and seem spontaneous.

AG, I'm not entirely sure what it is that you're disagreeing with me about. So, bearing that in mind, that I am not too sure why you keep quoting me when what you say sometimes sounds as if it is arguing with someone else, I 'll quote your post a bit and try to work out what is our difference of opinion.

That's what I'm saying. That whereas previously I used to believe in free will and it was important, for habit ridden reasons, that some part of me should be independent of the world, I no longer think that. The scales have fallen.

Don't know what you mean, sorry.


I agree, 100 %.


I used to be, now I am struggling to express something which says how utterly irrelevant this distinction is, because that which experiences itself as observing, and/or choosing, or whatever, is part of the whole process, and has no more independent existence than anything else in that process .


Actually there i disagree, because sometimes it does happen that one watches oneself being angry or exhausted, as if from somewhere else.

Don't know what you mean, sorry. What oppression of identity?

I was talking about oppression like society turning difference into disability, or the oppressions of sexism, racism, etc.

What do you mean by arbitrary?

Don't know what you mean, sorry.


I don't think that they don't exist. I know that they do. But whose are they, if "you" are entirely determined/caused by the world?

I think we are arguing over definitions and conclusions. I could be wrong, but I think that this is the argument I thought I was trying to have.


I'll be honest, sometimes I get a little out of bodied-ness too, but nothing so separate as what I was trying to indicate. Like, not a non-tired self with all of the thinking prowess of the non-tired self despite the tiredness of the self.


You described a lack of free will as oppressive, I consider free will to be an issue of identity. I am my will, and my will is free to do what it wants.


Well, societies, by their nature, will turn differences into disabilities because they cannot regard all ability as equal. The best we can do logically is to seek rational discrimination but discrimination has and will always exist.

You are pointing out that old discriminations are now oppressive without free will, I say that they are always oppressive, but that your tolerable factor for discrimination no longer exists. I would argue that all discrimination is ultimately arbitrary, but necessary.

You spoke of oppression, I simply argued that oppression is neither more or less real if free will exists or not.


They are yours, who or what else exists to take position of your faculties? Nobody. If anybody owns them then you do.

This is called epiphenomenalism.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epiphenomenalism

I stumbled upon the idea before I knew the word for it. I am introspectively aware of an “I” that is watching, yet the idea of a self is not coherent from an outside perspective. There is really no way to test to see if another independent “self” exists. Physicalists would say the self is the merely the collection of “stuff” that makes up our brain. Yet I must rely on my subjective experience to even entertain the notion of “stuff”.

This stuff gets really painful and contradictory if I attempt to think too deeply about it.

It's an axiom... YOU are free to ignore it of course.

And there has long been documented evidence that every one of those factors you have listed have an impact on your ability to process information. However the fundamental choice at the precession of all of that is your will to chose to enact your cognitive apparatus. Of course you are free to suspend that action as often as you like.

It's an axiom... a self-evident truth. You can detect it through introspection if you care to do as such. If you do not, you are free to ignore it and proceed on whatever premises you would like to. There is no universal imperative forcing you to accept truth. You can do whatever you want because you have the will to decide that you would rather consider yourself a chit floating about on external forces. That is YOUR choice.

And I rephrased it so many times because there have been many many misrepresentations of Free Will on this thread and I did not want to be mistaken.

As for the RESULTS of your brain work... again... that is NOT what free will is about. Free Will only states that you are able to turn on your cognitive apparatus, not how well you use it. There are many brain conditions that prevent it's use and dissociate a person from reality. Autism makes the brain work in different ways to the "standard" expectation of how a brain would work. But still, Austistics also have the choice to initiate it's use or not.

Exactly! Free Will isn't the result but the precursor to Cognitive function.



Well said awesomelyglorious. Quoted for exclamation.

Whomever has ownership of the brain and is making the choice.

This is the perfect example of what I am talking about. Thanks marshall.

In that situation when you are confronted with painful and contradictory tenets you have a choice. Either rationalise that pain and contradictions away... or focus your mind to the task at head and unravel the contradictions and think deeply and work hard to apply those tenets to reality and judge them on their merits. Then having done that integrate those new ideas into the sum of your knowledge and either reject those tenets or picking out the ones that do conform with reality taking on board only those you agree with and figuring out exactly WHY you disagree with the rest.

It seems in the past you have chose to disengage your brain and coast along on autopilot. That is the fundamental choice. of course you can go on any part of the spectrum between those two poles. It seems you have at least engaged your brain enough to identify to yourself that you do find the ideas painful and contradictory. It seems vague in your post though... do you still attempt to agree even though you find it painful and contradictory?

And don't forget the ridiculous concept of "philosophical zombies" used in arguments on the philosophy of mind. The whole concept has always seemed to me to be so obviously based on biased assumptions that I can't believe it is taken so seriously.

Interesting thread.

I have a question, and it is not criticism or anything like that, I just want to know how this is explained by people who believe free will doesn't exist?

I think this must be a classic example, not sure.

I am very hungry, I have two restaurants near me, McDonalds and Burguer King, I like both, but I have to choose where to go, so I choose Burger King, next time I could choose another, that was my idea of free will, or at least the impression of it. So how can this be explained?

Another thing, the people who posted on this thread, made their own choice to do that and to choose their words, isn't that somehow free will? if not, then what is the explanation?

If those are just illusions I would really love to read explanations, it would be appreciated.

Proposers of free will never seem to admit that their so-called "free" decisions are based on their conceptions of the results of their decisions. Those conceptions are not drawn out of thin air but depend totally on past experience and expectations. I am puzzled as to what is free.

Belief in/teaching of free will as a universal human quality is perhaps the foundation and corner stone of neuro-elitist ablism.

Assuming/believing that people can choose to engage their cognitive faculties "as they wish" with the impression that they are doing so freely, implies that those who pretend that they can't/can't seem to how ever hard they try, or quite evidently can not, are lacking in some way. ( stupid, wilfully ignorant, ill or disabled, etc)

Perhaps some human beings do have free will, like some human beings have balls, but requiring those without balls to produce sperm would be unreasonable.

Belief in free will as a universal human quality is painful for those who can not engage their cognitive faculties as and when they wish.

Izaak, you may have free will. I do not. Your insistence on its being not only desirable, but a part of being human, something within the grasp of everyone, is oppressive to me. It is oppressive to many.

Society's treatment of those without it is as discriminatory as society's treatment of women, and non-whites, and gays, has been , and often still is. Your post is just yet another concentrated example of this discrimination and prejudice, which demeans and diminishes and excludes by its assumption that everybody has this thing.

This ( directed cognitive activity) is something that I gather many people on ( and off) the spectrum have trouble doing, to the point that many in childhood even have difficulty identifying themselves as a discrete/individual unit.

I had the experience of having a part of my cognitive capacity switched on at the age of 29, without my volition, by "data" in a book, which caused something like a mental explosion as processes started that had been arrested/suppressed years before, ( by a mixture of long-term exposure to the institution of school, periods of bullying, wheat and dairy food opioids effect on my brain from infancy, sugar's painkilling properties to which I became addicted in childhood, aswell as a weak thyroid , poor adrenal function, ( both tendencies in my family), on top of aspergers).

It's being switched on was painful, astonishing and exhilarating, and resulted in an enormous upheaval in my life. I remember very clearly the experience, as if I had been given a whole new tool box.

Belief in free will's universality may be causing the oppression of a vast number of people who in fact do not have free will; who are excluded or exploited , confused and disabled by a society organised/arranged around this principle, or dismissed as ill/disordered/immature by those who have it, just like women and blacks used to be classed with children by white men.

Heroes are made out of "free will", and horror films frighten with it's absence, in the same way as women and blacks have been portrayed, dangerous and awful when not under restraint/appropriately domesticated.

I don't have free will. I'm not going to pretend anymore that I have, nor am I going to beat myself up anymore for this perceived failing in me.

Last edited by ouinon on 01 May 2008, 10:40 am, edited 11 times in total.

Since all decisions are made on the basis of the best judgment of the decider and the basis of that decision is the experience and expectation of the decider which is fixed how does freedom enter the process?

Well, technically there is no problem with this example. I would argue that if the choices are originally equal then this has started a causal chain towards their inequality. http://www.richarddawkins.net/article,1 ... hn-Tierney but no, nobody denies that people choose.

I think that part of this is a matter of definitions. The person did freely choose their words, but that choice was dictated by previous happenings. Anti-free willers say that free choice must be without cause, but others can accept caused choices.


Only if combined with anti-psychological beliefs. Frankly, I would have more problem with the anti-psychological beliefs than the belief in free will.

The (non)existence of human free will is tautological. Either all people have it or nobody can have it. You can redirect your cognitive faculties as you wish, but likely not to the extent where you can automatically cause your heart rate to raise and lower by thoughts alone. Once again, the issue is anti-psychological beliefs.


You do, the issue is that it is either you have poor impulse control mechanisms, or have a difficult time dealing with decisions and tend to have single-mindedness with goals or some such along those lines. Like I said, the existence/non-existence of free will is tautological.


A matter of definition. If the decider is free to decide in a causal manner then it can be taken as free. The issue is the libertarian definition of free will vs the compatibilist one. I agree, libertarian free will likely does not exist, but I think compatibilist free will does.