Free thought. The very name of this blog seems to assume something which may not be true. Should the name be changed to “causally determined cognition”?
Imagine this hypothetical situation. An alien kidnaps you and puts you on his spaceship. He shows you a giant computer, and tells you that the computer has collected every bit of physical information about the universe at the moment you entered the ship. Then he takes you into a room with two boxes. He explains a game. He will have no further contact with the boxes. In box 1, he has placed either $1,000,000 or nothing. In box 2 he has placed $1000. He tells you that you can choose to take either box…or both of them. You look at him confusedly. He explains the catch. He has looked at his computer data and made a guess what you would choose. If he guessed you would take only box 1, he put $1,000,000 in it. If he guessed you would take both, he put nothing in it. What do you do? (the particular money amounts shouldn’t matter). This question involves an issue which is very important. Think about it, make a decision, and see if you can support it, especially as it relates to the rest of this article.
The question of free will is often ignored even in the discipline of philosophy. The question is far from being fully resolved, and indeed, should be scrutinized even more closely. The assumption of free will is so deeply ingrained in our thought that attempts to question it are dismissed out of hand, despite the tremendous implications for many theories in all areas of thought. It may be sufficient for the ignorant man to go about life without a thought in that direction, but if one is to make any credible argument in any discussion of human action, one must seriously consider the possibilities of determinism. The questions that arise include: What is “free will”? Do human beings have free will? What practical implications does free will or lack thereof have in daily life and morality?
There are two overlapping pairs of possible stances involving free will. The first pair is the argument of determinism and indeterminism. Determinism is the stance that all events, including human actions, can be entirely explained through causal relationships, and therefore, an infinitely intelligent being with complete information could reliably predict the entire future of the universe from any single set of circumstances. Indeterminism holds that this cannot be done, that some events are not determined by preexisting circumstances.
This is not yet a complete account to the possibilities of free will. There is also an argument between compatibilitists and incompatibilists, who may themselves belong to either of the above groups. Incompatibilists claim that determinism and free will are mutually exclusive. If the world is determined, there can be no free will. Compatibilists, sometimes called soft determinists, argue that free will can exist in a deterministic universe.
The reason we should be so concerned especially in this age about free will is that increasingly, science, as it has gotten more advanced, seems to provide indismissable evidence for determinism. Free will may have seemed intuitive, but experiments have shown that even when people think they are making a fully free choice, they are guided by complex, fully physical interactions in the brain. For example, an experiment was conducted where a patient was asked to choose randomly between an object on the left and right. Left handed people tended to choose left, and right handed people tended to choose right. However, if a certain part of the brain was stimulated, the odds became massively affected in the opposite direction, so that over 80% of right-handers would choose left. When asked, the patient insisted their action was fully free. Clearly the appeal to intuition is no longer sufficient. Beyond that, is there really any evidence in favor of free will?
What is free will? Is an unfree will possible? It is said by most that for an action to be free, the agent COULD have done otherwise. Some would add the provision: IF they had wanted to, to the end. This is important to the compatibilist argument. This IF clause, however, seems to necessitate the removal of “free” from free will, and thus they argue from a different definition.
Quantum physics, which has shown events on a tiny scale to be random, may replace determinism with a sort of probabilistic variant, but doesn’t remove the question of free will.
Free will seems to have many implications in our lives and view of the world. How do we view our own making of decisions? Especially, what effect would a deterministic worldview have on moral responsibility? Can we blame anyone for their actions if they were fully caused by circumstances before their birth? Does this affect our theory of punishment?
Is determinism a hopeless viewpoint? Useless? Some would disagree.
I will leave these questions mostly sans answers (although I myself may have them). Talk amongst yourselves, and feel free to ask questions or propose solutions. I implore that you consider very carefully. If you call yourself a free thinker, and you really think that you are free, make sure you can support that belief, and be sure you can articulate it to others. Ultimately, if one wants to lead an examined life, one cannot run from this question forever.
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