@trodgers This is probably right up your ally. I was listening to this podcast a while ago, and found it really fascinating. Been thinking about it here and there ever since. Neuroscientist Sam Harris is suggesting that we do not have free will at all, and he presents a pretty convincing argument: What do you think?
Great topic. I wrote my dissertation on moral responsibility for our character, and part of my purpose was to show how even if we have a very high bar for what counts as free will, we still have it. Sam Harris's arguments are wretched, and he knows nothing about free will or ethics as far as I can tell. I'm going to post a book review of his "Free Will" book.
Lol, don't hold back tell us what you really think. It seems like he's speaking from a neuroscientist perspective that relies on if he can see the steps to arrive at a decision. Would be fascinated to hear the other side's POV.
He can't see the steps, but even if he could that wouldn't disprove free will. This garbage has already been debunked by a former professor of mine. http://bigthink.com/videos/does-free-will-exist That's a video of him, Al Mele. He has won two grants over $3M to study free will and neuroscience at FSU. He has written at least seven books, all on free will and moral responsibility (and theory of action generally), he has published more than 200 articles, and he's widely known as an actual expert on free will, unlike Harris.
The review is from an academic journal. I can't upload it legally, but I'll email it to you if you'd like.
120 pages? WHOA. I wrote a 40 page paper in school once, but the majority were in the 10 - 15 page range. How long did it take you to write that?
I formulated the idea over the first two plus years at FSU, and then in year 3 I did special area reading and exam, then a Prospectus, Prospectus defense, and spent the last year writing the actual dissertation. So 1.5 years of real work. I think my MA thesis was 40-something.
@trodgers I read the Introduction... had to re-read half the sentences lol. I'll take on this mammoth during Winter Break... We didn't choose to be here, and we also have certain innate instincts that make it hard for us to act against, making it seem like there is some sort of force against free will... But DID we choose to be here? I see myself as a part of the Creation, and I believe that the Creator needed something, and created life as a vehicle for whatever it needed... But if I'm a part of the creation, I DID choose to be here, if the Creator chose to Create. But what about our instincts? What's stopping me from punching my roommate as he's doing homework right now? Myself? Or my instincts?
Vs. the Wegner/Libet studies: there's just not conclusive proof that there is no role for conscious intentions to play. Mele in particular does a great job of showing how people in those studies might be behaving (because he was a subject in one), and he also discusses how to interpret that data. Most discussions of free will approach it in this way: free will is the "control condition" on moral responsibility. It's what we do that makes an action OURS so that praise and blame are appropriate. The big debate is about what free will requires. There are two main camps: incompatibilists and compatibilists. Compatibilists say that free will is compatible with determinism. Incompatibilists disagree. I'm an incompatibilist. Mele is not. He's officially agnostic, but he's really a compatibilist. Not at all. I love discussing free will. I'm working on a paper on it right now. I'm a double libertarian - a free will and a political libertarian, and I think that thinking about how these two debates are related should lead to a revamping of our justice system. That's what the paper is about. Your instincts might be you - or part of you. If you're a Christian, I recommend reading Augustine's "On Free Choice of the Will" - read book 1. It's 37 pages, and it's beautifully written. Augustine tries to explain our relation to God, why He gave us free will, and how He is just despite allowing evil and punishment. Highly recommend for all. Again, you embrace some of your instincts and reject others. Someone who struggles with addiction might create a "wedge case" - where there's a part of you that you reject, like a desire or a belief. My view is that YOU are the agent, the thing that does actions. Your character (motivations, reasons, etc.) is something YOU have.
I don't want to get into a heated intellectual argument because I don't have enough philosophical knowledge to effectively participate, but I'll post my opinion anyways lol. I believe we're the product of evolution and that everything boils down to a physical interaction between atoms. By chance, we happened to be on a planet that had the right conditions and chemical catalysts (water) to eventually lead to the formation of more complex biomolecules like RNA, DNA, proteins, etc. Eventually they self-assembled into cells. Like charges repel each other. Opposite charges attract each other. Those are the basics that govern the behavior of all bodies and influence the chemistry that allows the comlpex cellular machinery to work. (I'm going to ignore quantum mechanics because I have no knowledge about it and I'm assuming it's irrelevant on the larger scale of biology). Over billions of years of mutations and natural selection, we get the variety of complex organisms that we see today. Our brains are a collection of neural cells and other components. Those cells have cell membranes that respond to stimuli. In certain situations, those nerve cells will open up and either allow ions to enter or exit the cell, which changes the charge of the cell and creates an electric potential that is transmitted throughout the neural network. This neural network is complicated and we don't know all the details of it's inner workings, but physically, that is basically what is happening for all of our brain's activities. It's a lot more complicated, but I think that physically, our brains are essentially computers. There is no room in that for free will.
@Helljumper That's Baron d'Holbach's view, but he beat you to the punch by 250 years! http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/8909
@trodgers, have you read Luther's On the Bondage of the Will, or Jonathan Edwards, Freedom of the Will? They are both available free online.
I've read parts of both. I'm more familiar with Luther and Calvin than Edwards. I was baptized, raised, did catechism, and was married at a Lutheran church. My favorite Christian work on Free Will is Augustine's On Free Choice of the Will. I might've recommended it previously in this thread. I think it's brilliant and beautiful.
