One of the very first philosophical ideas ever to be considered is the nature of “Free Will”. What exactly is it? Do we as humans possess it? These are questions that we will explore today. I will show you that despite our very natural tendency to believe we have choice, the evidence we have demands otherwise.
In order to talk about free will, we must first know a little bit about what it is. Free will is the notion that an agent can decide what action to undergo, unrestrained by outside influence. We all have an intrinsic understanding at least at some level of what it means to have choice. Your computer for example does not have free will. Everything it does is a direct result of what is put into it. Often these effects are intended to look as if it had Free Will (Artificial Intelligence) but this is all just smoke and mirrors. What I am talking about is your real ability to choose what your actions for yourself, without being forced to by physical laws or any other source. I will introduce now a hypothetical example that I will use through the rest of this writing to illustrate some of the ideas that are brought up.
Imagine playing billiards with a friend. You are playing 8 ball and it is your shot. There are two balls that look to be open shots, the 3 and the 5. You decide to take the 3 ball so you strike the cue with your stick causing the cue to bounce into the 3 which in turn falls into a side pocket.
Now typically what we would assume happens is that you as a human “choose” to hit the 3 ball. But after having struck the cue ball, everything happens “deterministically”. Meaning that the 3 ball did not choose where to go, it was forced to go into the side pocket by the cue ball. This is the stance that we typically take on a day to day basis. It seems perfectly reasonable at the surface, but as we shall see the idea is more complicated than previously thought.
Free will has a couple of problems when trying to reconcile with physics. The most major issue with having choice is that it violates a very fundamental principle of science: Causality. To quote the matrix: “You see there is only one constant. One universal. It is the only real truth. Causality. Action, reaction. Cause and effect.”
Events in the present cause things to happen in the future. Things that are happening in present were caused by events in the past. Every cause has an effect, and every effect was made by a cause. It is a basic, fundamental, essential assumption that must be made for anything to make sense. All of human history can be summarized by the gradual realization that things in the world happen according to physical laws, and not by whim or superstition. It is impossible to stress just how important causality is in science. Without it, there is no reason for anything that happens. Any scientific theory that comes about that contradicts causality is assumed to be false. In fact a typical method of disproving a theory is to show that it violates causality.
To demonstrate how free will violates causality, we will use our billiards example. Let’s see what happens when we introduce free will into the otherwise deterministic series of events after you strike the cue with your stick. We will say now that the 3 ball has “choice” of where to go after being struck by the cue ball. With this choice, the three might go in any direction, regardless of the instructions by the cue ball. It might even chose to stay still. Let’s say it goes a couple of inches and then stops. Well, what caused this action? It certainly wasn’t the cue ball hitting the three, because the three did not follow what should have happened if it did. What we have is a cause without an effect. In fact by definition a choice is without cause. A clear violation of causality.
Another issue with free will is called the problem of emergence. In our billiards example, a good question to ask would be “what makes us different than the billiard ball that gives us free will and not it?” Nobody would suppose that atoms have choice do they? Well then why do we (who are entirely made up of atoms) mysteriously have free will but the billiard ball does not (which is also made of atoms).
Put another way, go down the evolutionary list and ask yourself: “Does this have free choice?” Humans, dogs, rats, flies, ants, grass, bacteria? From a biological standpoint, we are not in any relevant way different from these other organisms that we assume to not have free will.
What do you make of it? Is it still too hard to let go of choice because it feels so apparent? What might make you want to maintain a belief in it? There are still many sides to this topic that I haven’t brought up yet because this post is long enough already.
As always, thanks for reading.
In order to talk about free will, we must first know a little bit about what it is. Free will is the notion that an agent can decide what action to undergo, unrestrained by outside influence. We all have an intrinsic understanding at least at some level of what it means to have choice. Your computer for example does not have free will. Everything it does is a direct result of what is put into it. Often these effects are intended to look as if it had Free Will (Artificial Intelligence) but this is all just smoke and mirrors. What I am talking about is your real ability to choose what your actions for yourself, without being forced to by physical laws or any other source. I will introduce now a hypothetical example that I will use through the rest of this writing to illustrate some of the ideas that are brought up.
Imagine playing billiards with a friend. You are playing 8 ball and it is your shot. There are two balls that look to be open shots, the 3 and the 5. You decide to take the 3 ball so you strike the cue with your stick causing the cue to bounce into the 3 which in turn falls into a side pocket.
Now typically what we would assume happens is that you as a human “choose” to hit the 3 ball. But after having struck the cue ball, everything happens “deterministically”. Meaning that the 3 ball did not choose where to go, it was forced to go into the side pocket by the cue ball. This is the stance that we typically take on a day to day basis. It seems perfectly reasonable at the surface, but as we shall see the idea is more complicated than previously thought.
Free will has a couple of problems when trying to reconcile with physics. The most major issue with having choice is that it violates a very fundamental principle of science: Causality. To quote the matrix: “You see there is only one constant. One universal. It is the only real truth. Causality. Action, reaction. Cause and effect.”
Events in the present cause things to happen in the future. Things that are happening in present were caused by events in the past. Every cause has an effect, and every effect was made by a cause. It is a basic, fundamental, essential assumption that must be made for anything to make sense. All of human history can be summarized by the gradual realization that things in the world happen according to physical laws, and not by whim or superstition. It is impossible to stress just how important causality is in science. Without it, there is no reason for anything that happens. Any scientific theory that comes about that contradicts causality is assumed to be false. In fact a typical method of disproving a theory is to show that it violates causality.
To demonstrate how free will violates causality, we will use our billiards example. Let’s see what happens when we introduce free will into the otherwise deterministic series of events after you strike the cue with your stick. We will say now that the 3 ball has “choice” of where to go after being struck by the cue ball. With this choice, the three might go in any direction, regardless of the instructions by the cue ball. It might even chose to stay still. Let’s say it goes a couple of inches and then stops. Well, what caused this action? It certainly wasn’t the cue ball hitting the three, because the three did not follow what should have happened if it did. What we have is a cause without an effect. In fact by definition a choice is without cause. A clear violation of causality.
Another issue with free will is called the problem of emergence. In our billiards example, a good question to ask would be “what makes us different than the billiard ball that gives us free will and not it?” Nobody would suppose that atoms have choice do they? Well then why do we (who are entirely made up of atoms) mysteriously have free will but the billiard ball does not (which is also made of atoms).
Put another way, go down the evolutionary list and ask yourself: “Does this have free choice?” Humans, dogs, rats, flies, ants, grass, bacteria? From a biological standpoint, we are not in any relevant way different from these other organisms that we assume to not have free will.
What do you make of it? Is it still too hard to let go of choice because it feels so apparent? What might make you want to maintain a belief in it? There are still many sides to this topic that I haven’t brought up yet because this post is long enough already.
As always, thanks for reading.