“When biologist Anthony Cashmore claims that the concept of free will is an illusion, he’s not breaking any new ground. At least as far back as the ancient Greeks, people have wondered how humans seem to have the ability to make their own personal decisions in a manner lacking any causal component other than their desire to “will” something. But Cashmore, Professor of Biology at the University of Pennsylvania, says that many biologists today still cling to the idea of free will, and reject the idea that we are simply conscious machines, completely controlled by a combination of our chemistry and external environmental forces.
In a recent study, Cashmore has argued that a belief in free will is akin to religious beliefs, since neither complies with the laws of the physical world.”
Read more at Physorg.com (thanks, Tiram)
My genes give me determinism,
free will gives me choice!
Aaah, someone who shares my views.
I find it an intriquing matter. Because I have an opinion of it, which I don’t have according to my beliefs — which I don’t have. I think about it, while I can’t think. I don’t know — I just am. Just a sack of chemicals, of matter, all interacting with each other and the world and being me.
Dan Dennett is essential reading on this. The sort of free will that people seem to want to believe in but that doesn’t make sense and can’t exist philosophers refer to as “libertarian free will”.
I highly recommend Eliezer Yudkowsky’s “Solution to Free Will” sequence of posts: http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Free_will_%28solution%29
For the love of no deity in particular, don’t let the government know. Can you imagine the political ramifications they’d dream up for this?
Free Will is not an illusion, it is a film about a killer whale. Duh.
It is the same question IMHO as ‘is conscious awareness an illusion?’ or ‘is self-awareness an illusion?’ and the answer to all three is both yes and no.
No it is not an illusion, if by illusion you mean “a false perception of an object or experience due to the mind misinterpreting the evidence relayed to it by the senses”. It is not false in that sense.
Yes it is an illusion, if by illusion you mean “a false or misleading impression, idea, belief or understanding” in the same way as a film of a car is just an illusion of movement created by rapid sequences of still images.
Come on, the wonder of consciousness and awareness cannot be reduced to such simple statements.
The illusion (or delusion) is that human language can accurately describe such complex phenomena.
Yep. I agree No free, but then my life is pretty crap so it’s much easier/convenient for me to accept that my cicumstances are beyond my control than somebody who is sucessful…..but then they don’t have any choice in believing they do have free will. The lucky bastards.
Even if all this is right, free will is an illusion we should all hold on to. What will become of us if we accept the (theory!) that we cannot consciously influence anything about us as given? If we stop striving, trying to achieve? Call me religious, but Cashmore’s world is a sad world filled with Zombies.
Pity the following experiment cannot be done: raise a group of children under the firm belief that their will cannot change anything about their life. Make them believe they are not responsible for any of their actions. What will become of them? I wonder.
It is surely right that the sum of genetics and environment infuences us and our actions much more than we had thought, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the human mind still had some secrets in stock for us.
Hmmm, food for thought…
I clicked on a link to come here, following a suggestion that if I thought free will was an illusion I should click here.
Did I come here of my own free will or not? I feel kinda dirty
Blimey! If you’re hung-up on mapping causal links, think of the hundreds of thousands of diagrams you’d need for a bit of street theatre involving a dozen or so people.
If you want to know how to cope once you’ve accepted there’s no free will – read the final chapter of Susan Blackmore’s The Meme Machine. If you don’t accept that free will is an illusion, you’ll need to read the whole book!
(If you believe in free will, then Derren is a master magician manipulating us all. If you don’t believe in free will, then he’s setting the stage for us to unconsciously provide the ‘magic’ for ourselves).
With ageing those things normally tend to be a bit different. It’s more simple to see some stuff. People do need to see that they do have control, that there is free will, but if you step out of your personal self and start watching humans from the outside it is not really free will at least not the way we would see upon ‘free will’.
Who are we? Who are you? What part of you defines your truest self?
I didn’t want to be born, did not ask for it , so so much for free will (ehehehe …). But yes, I will use ‘free will’ as well, the way we need to see to it, in life. Although, I would not call it really free will myself, due to many things. With me, tons. Yes, I can not stop seeing sometimes something different.I do see the surface, the way we need to see it but can’t deny another me.
Talking about Daniel Dennett, a public lecture on that topic:
“Is Science Showing That We Do Not Have Free Will”
http://sciencestage.com/v/14945/is-science-showing-that-we-dont-have-free-will?-daniel-dennett-university-of-edinburgh.html=
To someone with limited knowledge and intelligence, I’d say man appears to have free will. It seems the existence of an entity with unlimited knowledge and intelligence is a theoretical construction, but if such an entity existed man could well appear not to have free will to this entity. However, each person would feel that he has free will anyway, and would have to use this will to live his life. If we look at it in less black and white, a person seems to have less free will the more knowledge and intelligence about human behaviour the person studying him has.
Hmmm. Disappointing that this wasn’t referenced in the Cashmore paper:
http://babylon.acad.cai.cam.ac.uk/people/rhsc/consc.html
Read The Blank Slate by Steven Pinker. Fascinating book which makes the same point.
Ahh, this is a philosophical conundrum as old as time itself. But I seem to remember it was all successfully wrapped up about 15 years ago; by me and my mates over a pint or seven in the Old Bull Arms. If only I could remember what we concluded … Oh yeah, something about agency being compatible with determinism and freedom not being synonymous with unpredictability. It was probably the beer talking …
Pretty sure there is no free will. It only stands to reason when you think about how a brain works. To those who say “but if we accepted that, we wouldn’t strive and we’d be zombies and think of the children” Yes. However, that isn’t proof against it. It is just observing how the masses would perhaps respond if they were intelligent enough to accept determinism. But they aren’t intelligent enough, so we don’t need to worry about that. Just like saying “if we believed that some people get raped and murdered, and we can’t do anything to stop it, then the world would be a depressing place” – yes, and that is the truth. But should we ignore facts because they can be depressing? I find existence depressing, whether it is a result of determinism or free will is equally depressing.