Free Will and Choices: Spoiler Alert. We Don't Have Them



I don't believe in free will. From the big-bang through our evolution, to all the experiences we have throughout our lives, to the billions of things that affect us each and every second, we can only react to the serendipity around us. Why we do what we do has far less to do with the choices we make than the choices thrust upon us.

We are here, at a specific point of history, with a specific set of genes, and a specific background all by random chance. Where, and who, and when we are, programs us with limited (if any) choice about how we're going to react.

We're only able to do, in any situation, what we're able to do at the time. We're not possibly going to be able to do anything we're not able to do.
 
 Keep an eye on this post. It's one of those I will probably expand upon several times. It's one of those recurring issues that always come up.

Comments

Anonymous said…
Oh boy. Here we go again. You don't believe in free will? Why should anyone take you seriously about that then? After all, if you have no free then you had no other choice except to believe you have no free will. If you disagree than you do have free will.
July 23, 2013 at 8:04 PM
Unknown said…
Good point. To a point. I can't remember the guy who said it, but there was something about there not being any such thing as free will, but we must act as if there is. I think he was a neuro-scientist, which takes the argument in a whole other direction...It may have been Sam Harris.
I don't think we have free-will, but even if we did, we tend to credit it far more than it deserves. Like the myth of the "self made man".
July 23, 2013 at 10:23 PM
Unknown said…
One way or another, this sounds and feels like one of our old round-a-bouts from the FACTS board. Am I warm? (You don't have to answer. Unless you feel compelled to...)
July 23, 2013 at 10:27 PM
Anonymous said…
I'll think about it. I suppose whatever I choose to do, that would not have been a real choice. ;-) So you shouldn't be taking any credit.
July 24, 2013 at 1:02 PM
Unknown said…
Always a good idea to beware of hubris. Regardless of our discussion on "free will".
July 24, 2013 at 6:05 PM
Anonymous said…
Yes, agree.

Anyway, yes, Sam Harris is a neuroscientist. I actually have his book "The Moral Landscape" in which he does discuss free will. And, course considering the title of the book, also, moral relativism, which he doesn't believe in, maybe surprisingly? To him, there is bad and good. And what is bad or good is based on what promotes the well-being of people. I haven't read the book from cover to cover, but I do dip into it from time to time.
July 25, 2013 at 10:28 PM
Unknown said…
I haven't read The Moral Landscape, but I've followed some of the discussion of it. Science Channel's Through the Wormhole had a show on free will, but I missed most of it. They got into some of the neurology of it, as well as quantum mechanics and quantum physics. Heavier than my little hypothesis. I just take it for how I can understand it. As we all do. Until we can do otherwise. Free will has its limits.
July 25, 2013 at 10:33 PM
Unknown said…
Even the illusion of free will has its limits.
July 25, 2013 at 10:33 PM
Anonymous said…
"The illusion of free will is itself an illusion". Page 112, The Moral Landscape.

What exactly is the purpose of the free will argument? And how many angels can sit on the head of a pin?
July 26, 2013 at 12:39 AM
Unknown said…
Wow. Sam Harris is stealing my stuff.

"How many pinheads can dance on dreams of angels"-me
July 26, 2013 at 2:47 AM
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