Quote (J-Breakz)
Free will is the ability to consciously compare the consequences of choices and choose from the knowledge of what the results are of our choices.
Alright I'm going to take some time to right this, and it will probably be long so bear with me. And read my response to Erik as well, if you have time. Because much of it is directed to you, and it will help you understand. When someone says, "I have freewill," they are making all kinds of assumptions. Usually they are assuming there is an inner-self or a soul (or both), and they are assuming there is a mind-body dualism. When they say there is personal responsibility they are making the same assumptions, in addition to assuming they have personal identity. All of the aforementioned have logical evidence stacked against it. The source of these assumptions come from long ago when people were oblivious to the actual complexity.
Look J-Breaks, a proponent of freewill has to explain how freewill is possible. They have to explain how it fits into the laws of the universe. The problem is that no one has been able to explain how it is possible. The individuals who attempt usually use the absurdities of a soul argument or a mind-body dualism (which usually assumes a soul on its own also). Both arguments suggest that there is some transcendent force acting on our behalf that gives us some special ability allowing our thinking and actions to transcend the laws of nature, allowing for freewill. But that is no different than saying that god has given us the ability to have freewill. They are inconsistent arguments, they never hold up. I have never heard any other arguments in favor of freewill that avoids these assumptions.
Quote (eboyd)
the only people arguing that free will exists nowadays are people that have no clue about philosophy and most of which believe in a religious God. the only conclusion that involves free will in a sense that makes sense (which i am a proponent of) is compatibilism. it's the idea that determinism and free will are compatible. i believe in free will only to an extent. people are responsible for their actions but only to an extent.
Despite how ideal compatiblism is, I still don't find it good enough. Because a compatiblist argument suffers from the same issues as a pro-freewill argument, but only to an extent. Compatiblists also have to explain how freewill is possible, due to the "only to an extent" issue. As a preliminary measure, I will qualify what is meant by freewill from the outset. Freewill = Free-Choice or Free-Decision, I think most would agree.
Under free-choice/decision there is action-choice and there is option-choice. Action-choice can be defined as someone suddenly "deciding" to go do something. I don't believe action-choice exists at all (because there usually is no deliberation over alternative actions to even qualify it as a choice or decision of any will). However some people still consider it to be a component of freewill, but I will not be addressing it, so try to keep it out of mind. On the other hand, option-choice can be defined as a person deciding rather to pick this or that or other (number of options is irrelevant as long as there is more than one). Option-choice is essentially as J-Breaks described, that being, -the ability to deliberate over alternatives. I will be addressing option-choice, because I DO believe we engage in some kind of "choosing." But the nature of it is remote from the traditional understanding, as you shall see.
Explanation
I believe we have will, but it is not free because there is no controlling it. Most people say that life is an emergent property of a combination of certain molecules, consciousness is an emergent property of a combination of certain cells, and then some might go on to say that freewill is an emergent property of a certain kind of consciousness. I disagree with the last for this reason: it presupposes an inner-self/soul to direct the action of the will (thus making it free from any other director).
People are right to say that humans make decisions, but they have conceptualized aspects of the human being under false pretenses. Thus their explanation of our decision making is mistaken. There is a more complicated and scientific way of looking at it. Decisions don't guide our actions, stimuli guides our decisions, thereby extension guiding our actions. I look at it like this: Human beings are conscious and it is an emergent property of a higher complexity of molecules and other natural properties that operate completely within the laws of nature. Though, human brains have a special ability (due to a higher complexity) that many other creatures do not have: an awareness of its own consciousness. This ability is possible because the brain has become its own stimulus. A cognitive faculty has been developed that enables the brain to respond to the effects of other cognitive faculties. Hereby, the will becomes the act of the consciousness, and the brain's decisions are simply the act of the brain's awareness in response to its conscious will. (I think this might be how Daniel Dennet understands things, and that is why he calls himself a compatiblist, although I believe that is a label that carries too much baggage to be accurate for him, or anyone else who shares the same views as he, but whatever.)
Understanding it in this way accounts for why it seems human beings make choices. The brain is simply responding to logical or illogical processes that it has. This amounts to a creature that can go out into the world and make decisions. But that doesn't mean that the creature is in control of its decisions. Because the creature is simply an enormous system of checks and balances that operate under natural laws (or perhaps the lack thereof so says quantum physics, chaos would then be the law).
The human being is a single system. There is no inner-self or soul or any of that bull. We are no different than any other animal. We don't think animals have personal responsibility. But we shouldn't be naive and assume just because our behavior is more complex and our brain has an extended ability of awareness over its consciousness, that we are something different than any other animal. We are simply a more complex animal, we're not some mystical essence with magical god given powers to transcend the nature of this universe. We are simply one more development of the universe, and our nature abides it. As I've said before, as Sagan says, "We are a way for the cosmos to know itself."
Significance
But here's the important thing: once we realize this, we find serious implications, and we then have to figure out what is the significance of it. The significance I see leads me to believe we need to reevaluate how we interact with one another. When we interact, we usually expect people to be responsible for their actions. This is a big problem if our will isn't free. For example, if someone doesn't come through for someone else, or if someone makes a bad decision, that person is often blamed and punished for their actions. Instead, we should not be expecting people to make a good decision or action. If we realize that people are in the world simply reacting to the environment, then we can realize that you have to build society a certain way in order to get certain reactions from people. To be clear, I like to say human beings are a chemical in the dish, so it is important what we put in the dish with them. Now I don't believe that we can create behavior by creating certain stimuli (human behavior is far to complex to be able to predict the stimulus and the response, in most cases), I rather believe that we can take away certain stimuli that already exists that we know for certain stimulates unpreferred behavior. Therefore, we should build social interaction so that unpreferred behavior is not possible, or highly limited.
For example when a dog chews up a shoe, we don't blame the dog (even though some people barbarically do out of anger). The shoe is a stimulus, the behavior response (for whatever reason that may be too complex to understand) is chew. Most people try to "teach" the dog not to chew the shoe. Some experts try to provide positive reinforcements to not chew through training, but most owners simply beat the dog. Beating the dog usually works the quickest. Dog owners can't think of any other humane way to "teach" the dog, so they provide a stimulus (beat the dog) that creates the behavior response (fear), and therefore the dog doesn't chew the shoe. However we can see the problem with both methods: the expert trainer's method is time consuming, and the inhumane owner's method is unsophisticated and traumatic. INSTEAD, how about putting the shoes on a shelf out of sight of the dog?
That COMPLETELY removes the stimulus and therefore the possibility of the behavior response is eliminated. Obviously, human beings are more complex animals than the dog, and therefore we are even more difficult to "teach" or train. So the most efficient solution to our unwanted human behaviors is to remove the stimuli that produces our unwanted behavior responses.
And that is exactly what anarchist ideas do. Having a flat business structure, thereby eliminates the possibility for rivalry, or domination. The Venus Project does even better, though, because it eliminates almost all possibilities for unwanted behavior.
The point is, we can't assume people have freewill and personal responsibility, and expect people to do the right things. People are a chemical in the dish, we have to build our environment without the stimuli that results in unwanted behavior. Once we do this, we will truly become sophisticated people who truly understand our nature of existence. It is a complete shift in thought. Right now we run around hammering and blaming, pointing fingers, punishing and other barbaric bullshit because we are too stupid (or rather we haven't been exposed to the right stimuli) to understand our fundamental make-up. And there is a completely logical pathway as to why we do this: we are emerging ever so slowly out of irrationality and ignorance. Our eyes grow wider open.
We are nature itself. The most mistaken thing to think is that human beings are in control of themselves. We have no inner-eye that escapes nature, or frees our actions by an inner-eye's control. Nature controls itself, there is no eye behind it.
